The new model for staffing for Hermantown’s Fire Department is proving successful already.

Instead of an all volunteer model, they moved into a hybrid one. There are two full-time staff on during the day, and then paid on-call members cover the nights and weekends.

Deputy Chief Steve Johnson shared, “We actually took a minute off our response time. So having that hybrid model where we have our paid on-call members taking vehicles home and responding from home instead of responding to a station, and then to an incident, we actually are able to help people a lot faster.”

Chief Jim Crace, now the Director of Public Safety, shared that he couldn’t ask for a better result.

“Now we’re looking forward to more collaborative training,” he added.

Also, a program called Community Connect is going to start, allowing for more information sharing between the department and residents and businesses.

Plus, they are looking to partner with First Due, a records management system that will help them be more efficient.