A Message From The Chief

Thank you for visiting the Gerrish Twp Fire and EMS Dept web site. I hope you have found it helpful and informative. Our goal with this site is to provide our community with information to keep you safe, links to the services we and others provide, and to tell you a little about your Fire and EMS Dept.  

If you click on the “About the GTFD” tab at the top, not the down arrow but the words themselves, you will find our Mission, Vision, and Goals for the department.

Our Mission Statement reflects our desire to serve our community family and do so together with you. Our Vision Statement speaks more to our commitment to protect life and property and how we would do that. Our goals listed below the Mission and Vision are more specific and give us guidance to accomplish our Vision.

The members of our Fire and EMS Dept live in our community and one of the first things they brought forth when developing our Mission and Vision was that we care about our community and we want to be very good at the services that we provide. That is why two of our four goals are related to supporting staff so they can be well trained and providing community education. The other two department goals support these two main goals by managing budgets and providing staff with a good working environment and with the tools they need to perform their work.

Under the “Services” tab you will find topics such as Wellness checks, Car seat requests, Emergency Planning assistance, Smoke and Carbon Monoxide detector request, and a few others. In the top right corner of the home page is the icon for applying for a burn permit. Please check out the list of services and how to contact us. If you would rather talk with us please call or stop into the station and we will be glad to help you, our Firefighters and EMS staff enjoy the opportunity to visit with our community and visitors.

I do not think many people realize the high-level emergency services that the department provides. As a combination department, which is both full-time and paid-on-call (volunteer), and Advanced Life Support (ALS Ambulance) Gerrish Township provides the highest level of emergency service. Having a 2-person crew on duty at the station 24/7/365 allows a much quicker response to your needs. While the paid-on-call members are responding from home or work the on-duty crew is responding from the station reducing our response time by several minutes. The remainder of the departments paid-on-call members arrive shortly after with additional equipment and personnel.

Advanced Life Support means that our Paramedics and EMTs provide the most advanced medical care possible in the field, pre-hospital, here in Michigan. We are proud and grateful that we can provide this level of service. Without the support of our community and the vision of our past department and township leaders this would not be possible.

Having the crew available throughout the week allows us to be more active providing community and department education. The department now has 10 CPR Instructors, 8 State Certified Fire Instructors, and 4 State Certified EMS Instructor/Coordinators. One of our department goals has been to improve community education and outreach. Over the past couple of years, we have been providing career and safety education in both the Roscommon Area Public Schools and the COOR Career Tech Program. Our CPR instructors have been active both within our community and in neighboring communities teaching CPR lifesaving skills and some first aid related courses such as Stop the Bleed. The department provides continuing education to our Firefighters and EMS providers and has recently begun adding more advanced trainings all in effort to provide the best care possible for our community.

Several of our members are active on county and state committees and associations which helps us stay current with issues in the Fire and EMS services as well as support local emergency planning and response. The department is part of several mutual aid agreements including the Michigan Mutual Aid Box Alarm System.  These agreements allow us to help our neighbors and for them to support us in our time of need.

To say the least I am most proud of our team and I could talk much more about what they do. They are a dedicated group that strives to provide the best service. I encourage you to come into the station and visit. We appreciate our community, being able to live and serve here, and we would love to see you when it is not an emergency.

Thank You,
Chief Jim Fisher