Madison Fire Rescue had a desire to reduce the average response time to incidents and to also provide some coverage at the station on weekends when full time personnel were not on duty. This is also when volunteers like to do things with their families which either reduced the number of available volunteers to respond or lengthened their response. The idea was to staff the station continuously from Friday night at 7 pm to Sunday night at 7 pm with at least 1 person on shift. With backing from City Manager John Klimm and approval by the City Council, MFR started this staffing need on Oct 8, 2022. During this first shift MFR was dispatched to a fire burning near the Freshman Academy. Upon arrival the fire was burning the bushes and pine straw directly beside the building with flames touching the eves of the school. The fire was extinguished quickly. No one can say for sure what would have happened had it not been for on-duty staff being at the station but there is a chance that fire could have made it into the structure of the school building if there had been a more delayed response.
This staffing was put in place to augment the volunteer force on the weekends. We also use the part-time firefighters to fill in during special events, holidays when full-time staff is off and days that staffing is low during the week
Typically there is one person on shift during those weekend hours. Each of the current 14 part-time FFs can sign up for available shifts in 12 hour increments.
Most of these part-time FFs are full-time with other departments in the area and pick up a few shifts during a month here on their off days.
Current Staffing:
18 Volunteers on call 24/7
2 Full-time personnel Mon-Fri 8 am to 9 pm
14 Part-time personnel Fri 7 pm to Sun 7 pm, other times as needed