By Nick P. Angelides,Special to the Sun Journal

GREENE – The town’s volunteer fire and rescue squad is looking for backup.

“We get calls all the time, and we just don’t have the manpower or the certified personnel around to always respond,” Fire Chief Joe Brown said. “Our plan is to have United Ambulance respond first and then if requested and if we have the men, we would provide backup.”

A public hearing will be held Monday, June 26, to talk about the future of the six-person department.

The department answered more than 180 emergency calls last year.

Brown said that, under his proposal, the department would still get calls pertaining to fires, accidents and person-down situations.

Of the six members of the fire and rescue team, only two are in town during the working hours of the week.

“That is a lot of calls for two people to take,” Assistant Chief Bruce Tufts said. “We need to know what the people in Greene want, and if that is to have someone around all the time, then we possibly have to look at paying someone to be up there.”

Brown said standard protocol has emergency calls going to the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department, which dispatches to the volunteer fire department and United Ambulance.

What is happening more times than the Fire Department wants to admit, Tufts said, is that his team is unable to answer a large portion of those calls.

“We get hammered all the time about not responding, but we just don’t have the people,” Tufts said. “We don’t want to phase out our fire and rescue; we just need to make cutbacks. If we had 40 EMTs to pull from, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

The hearing will start at 7 p.m. at the Volunteer Fire Department.

Copy the Story Link