As most already now know our department responded to a structure fire on S State Street yesterday afternoon. First of all our crews worked quickly to gain control of the fire and limit the damage to the home.
It appears that several posts on the Sparta Communications Facebook page have concerns on the response from the fire department. So here are the facts.
First off Sparta’s Engine 3, Rescue 6 and medic 10 were on-scene prior to any mutual aid machines from Alpine and Kent City. We were dispatched at 1642 hours, the first Sparta responding unit (Sparta Car 1) called in service at 1643 hours. Sparta E3 was in service at 1646 hours and was on-scene with Sparta Car 1 at 1649 hours. These times are time stamped by the Kent County Dispatch Center when a unit calls in-service, they are not made up times. That is a 7 minute response time for a department that is not staffed. We remained on-scene until 2000 hours and then spent the next couple of hours cleaning our equipment and the apparatus ready to respond to the next needed request.
These hard working and dedicated men and women of the fire department left there families, dinner plans and special events to serve and protect this community and we can’t thank them and there families enough.
