Loss of five firefighters forces chief to temporarily close one of three Hannibal Fire Department stations
HANNIBAL, Mo. — Injuries and resignations among the firefighters in the Hannibal Fire Department have led to the decision to temporarily close Fire Station No. 2, 1383 30th Street near Huckleberry Park, effective Thursday, Dec. 12.
Chief Ryan Neisen said the fire department, when fully staffed, has 38 employees — 34 firefighters, one chief, a deputy chief (Dane Riefesel) and two training officers (Mark Kempker and Tom Stout). However, Neisen says the department is down five firefighters. National Fire Protection Association standards require three firefighters for every shift.
Neisen said he’s going through the hiring process now, trying to replace two firefighters who resigned in the last month. He believes he needs to fill four of the five vacancies in the department before he can reopen Fire Station No. 2.
“I don’t have a firm timetable on our injured personnel,” he said.
Neisen said the hiring process typically takes about one month, “depending on how fast you can get everybody through all the pre-employment stuff.” He said much of the training is done in-house.
“When we hire someone, we do a good job of getting them up to speed as quickly as possible,” he said. “But just like in any profession, there’s a learning curve for everyone. It’s not like we’re bringing on experienced personnel.”
The decision to close Fire Station No. 2 leaves Hannibal with two fire stations — No. 1 at 205 S. Fourth in downtown Hannibal and No. 3 at 3300 Arapaho, just west of U.S. 61 between Domino’s Pizza and Casey’s. Neisen said the typical arrival time for HFD engines is about three minutes. He said adjusted arrival times with only two stations in service will be different, depending on which part of town an engine must travel to.
“The borders of Station 2, where it butts up against Station 3 and Station 1, are an area that you’re going to see hardly any difference,” Neisen said. “Some of the commutes you’re obviously going to see get a little bit longer. To give an exact number, that’s hard for me to say what that is. A lot of things factor into response times, like traffic and time of day. We’re doing everything we can to minimize the impact to the citizens of Oakwood (a neighborhood in southwest Hannibal).
“We’ve put a lot of thought into how we are going to handle each area and tried to provide the best service to people while we have this temporary closure. There’s no doubt there will be some of those areas that will have a minimal response time increase, but we feel like this is a decision that’s made with our personnel and the community safety in mind.”
Neisen said he began efforts to put a temporary plan in place “over the last few weeks.” He doesn’t believe the department has any other “safe” options.
“You could roll the dice and try to keep three firehouses,” Neisen said. “Even if we still operated with three houses, we would not be doing that on a daily basis. There would be a ton of overtime.
“We still will incur quite a bit of overtime through this. You worry about things like burnout. This is not a Hannibal Fire Department problem. That’s a problem throughout emergency services. Not only do we have to worry about the physical well-being but the mental health well-being of our employees. We have to make sure they’re taken care of and that we’re doing right by them.”
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