Oct 11, 2024 By Jon Andreassi 3 min read

Cecil Township’s elected officials voted this week to establish a Department of Fire and Emergency Services to bring together the community’s three independent fire stations.

Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance creating the department at their meeting Monday. Now, a steering committee is working to establish a uniform set of procedures and guidelines among Cecil’s fire departments.

“One set of standards, one set of bylaws. That’s our end goal,” said township fire Chief Ted Wolford.

Cecil Township residents have traditionally been offered fire protection services from Lawrence Fire Company No. 1, Muse Fire Company No. 2, and Cecil Fire Company No. 3.

“Previously there were three separate fire departments. They kind of did their own thing. The township and volunteer fire departments are looking to work together more and cover the township as a whole,” Wolford said. “It also gets everybody on the same page with how we’re operating.”

Wolford attributes part of the reasoning for the change to declining numbers of volunteers. He estimates there are about 45 volunteers across all three stations.

For that reason, they are also looking to add career firefighters. According to Wolford, the township currently has eight part-time firefighters who earn $20 per hour.

“We’re going to fill, hopefully, a full-time position by the end of the year, and add a few more for 2025 as long as the budget lets us do that,” Wolford said.

According to Wolford, full-time firefighters will earn $70,000 per year.

Tom Casciola, chair of the board of supervisors, said the idea of bringing the fire departments together has been discussed for about two decades.

According to Casciola, the departments working under the same banner will help qualify the township for grants from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, and standardize equipment and practices for firefighters.

“Ultimately, we won’t have any duplication of equipment and things like that. All standard equipment, so firemen can jump from one station to another, one truck to another,” Casciola said.

Ron Stanton is one of the members of the steering committee for the department of fire and emergency services. He serves as the assistant chief and president of Lawrence Fire Company.

“Since this process has started, the three volunteer fire departments have never worked as well together as we do now,” Stanton said.

Stanton explained that with a shared set of procedures, they can avoid confusing situations at fire scenes.

“One group shows up with one set of rules, and another group shows up with a different set of rules to a call,” Stanton said.

Stanton hopes the change will lead to faster response times and more people responding to calls.

“The process has been going well, and there is still a lot of work left to bring the three departments under one umbrella. We have a great team on the steering committee that is working toward that goal,” Stanton said.