By Lee Noble
The Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. — Two fire companies in southern Lancaster County are one meeting away from merging before the end of the year.
The Martic Township Board of Supervisors voted Monday night to move ahead with the merger of the Rawlinsville Fire Company and Pequea Fire Company into one organization.
A final decision will be made Nov. 1.
“The township will pay the attorney fees to get this merger done,” Chairwoman Barbara Stokes said after the motion was passed.
Russ Guthrie, a consultant hired to help the companies map out their options in the merger, said the change will allow the companies to share resources and costs in an age when volunteer fire companies are disappearing.
There were about 300,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania in 1974, according to a multimedia presentation Guthrie gave at the meeting. That number is down to about 70,000 in 2010.
Because more municipalities are paying for fire services, Guthrie urged the township to continue to support its volunteers, not only for cost savings but for quality of life.
The fire companies could save about $209,359 jointly by executing the merger, dropping costs from $721,000 to $511,641 according to Guthrie’s estimates.
And the fundraisers — such as the Pequea Fire Company chicken barbecue — that the firefighters hold in their small rural townships provide community settings that bring the public together and allow the firefighters to pay their own bills.
In light of the consultant’s statements, Pequea fire Chief Brandon Evans asked the board members more directly where they stood.
“Does the township stand behind us financially?” Evans asked.
With the township’s answer in the form of an approved motion, the fire companies and the township residents have a month to think about how the merger might work.
According to the favored option presented by the consultant, Pequea Fire Company would lose its name in the merger. If adopted, the plan would be to build a multiuse pole shed in the Pequea Fire Company’s service area to replace its dilapidated facility on the bank of the Susquehanna River.
The new Rawlinsville Fire Company would then have a station and a substation, with a station chief running the current Rawlinsville facility and a deputy station chief in charge of the new facility.
The companies also would decide which trucks and equipment should stay, which should go and how to deal with outstanding debts.
A closed meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday. It will involve the fire task force committee formed between the two fire companies, concerned residents and Martic supervisors. The discussion will focus on what must be done to prepare for the final decision on whether to go with Guthrie’s plan.
The final decision will be made at the Nov. 1 Martic Township Board of Supervisors meeting.
Copyright 2010 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.