Newly formed St. Joe County Fire Territory swearing-in ceremony
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The official swearing-in ceremony for the newly created St. Joseph County Fire Territory (SJCFT) was held Fri. evening at the South Bend Country Club.
The fire territory went into effect on Jan. 1 of this year, but SJCFT Chief, Steve Downey said it was in development for a number of years prior.
“It started a few years ago, we had a conception of trying to build a fire territory that really put firefighters first… we merged… two townships…unincorporated Portage Township as well as Warren Township,” said Downey.
During the merge, it was up to each individual firefighter if they wanted to make the move.
“We do have a few more… that are brand new, this is their first fire department, but most of our members came from other fire departments to begin working for us,” said Downey.
One of the firefighters who chose to move was Dylan Bikowski, Fire Captain for Station 19, one of the three stations in the SJCFT.
“Obviously starting anything new and being on the ground floor is very scary, but I think the big part of that was accepting a new challenge. For me personally, within my own life and just seeing and being part of the mission of what the Saint Joe County Fire Territory wants to be,” said Bikowski.
Since starting operations in Jan., Chief Downey said it’s been running well, “Things have been going very good. There’s actually less hiccups than we thought there would be. We’re moving forward to the extent that we’re gonna begin providing ambulance transportation services six months ahead of our original schedule… June first of this year we’ll begin doing transports,”.
Chief Downey said it’s a good feeling to know so many firefighters made their own choice to come to the new territory.
“It’s a show of confidence in what we’re trying to do and they understand that our mission is to always keep our firefighters first in everything that we do, so it’s a lot of support from them, pretty excited, they’re very happy in the jobs they’re doing now,” said Downey.