PLATO, Minn. — The Plato Fire Department serves around 320 households in roughly a 40-square-mile area. Firefighter Jay Wood said on Thursday that the department consists of just 20 volunteer fire fighters.
"We're a department that averages around 75 calls a year," he said. "The bulk of them-- like every other fire department-- is medicals."
Although not a huge department by any means, Wood said when fire Chief Jamie Schlechter made the decision to take his department offline, he did not take it lightly. The decision comes after several of his fire fighters tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.
The Plato Fire Department is the first to completely go 'dark' due to the pandemic.
"It's a title we certainly didn't want but we feel as though this was absolutely the right decision to make," Wood said. "Truly the only decision to make--to like I said-- protect our citizens. We didn't want to expose our citizens to someone that might have the virus that was coming there to help them. We didn't want to further expose our fire fighters and their family members to the virus."
Emergency 911 calls in Plato's service area are now being taken care of by several surrounding departments, according to protocol set by state standards.
"I don't want to say we were expecting it but we've been planning for something like this for quite some time," State Fire Marshal Jim Smith said. "So when this happened, we just put our plan into action."
Smith and Wood both said the protocol wasn't just in place for COVID-19.
"We've seen it happen a couple of times this year unfortunately for departments that have had line of duty deaths," Wood said. "Where because of the need for the department to grieve and take time to deal with their loss, they've taken themselves out of service. Other departments have come in and provided protection for them so there is no interruption to service."
Plato is the first department to go offline due to the effects of the pandemic but both Smith and Wood agree, Plato won't be the last. Smith added that the timing isn't great, but that he has faith in the mutual aid system.
"It's probably not the best time of year to have fire departments impacted by COVID," Smith said. "This is our busiest time of year. People cook more, large families-- we've got the holidays coming up-- we see more use of candles, space heaters and alternative heating. So historically we've seen a rise in residential fires during this time of year. We're comfortable with the knowledge that we have this plan in place. We just wish it probably wasn't around this time of year."