Hope Township’s Fire Department, as with almost every fire organization, was created by concerned citizens; to protect the community from fires. The original intent was to keep fires localized or stop the fire from spreading or destroying other structures.

Today, Hope Fire personnel respond to a wide variety of fire type incidents. This includes structure fires, vehicle fires, wildland fires, unsupervised burning, dumpster fires and any other type of fire that may occur within the township. Hope Township Fire Department is responsible for sending an appropriate level of response to the type of fire that is reported. This at times can prove difficult, due to the manpower issues of volunteer departments. In the event that a fire is larger or more involved, additional resources would need to be requested from other township fire departments.

We participate with a variety of other township departments in mutual aid agreements. These types of agreements are fairly common throughout the United States. All fire service providers recognize that it is very easy for a fire to become large enough that the local resources and personnel are unable to control the incident. For this reason, departments enter in mutual aid agreements to help each other when situations dictate the need. Hope Fire has automatic response agreements with neighboring townships, dependent on the location; to send the closest resources to combat the fire. This system hopes to provide a more efficient response, with a greater chance of reducing the chance of loss of life and reduce property loss.

A climate of change has occurred in emergencies services, the majority of incidents that Hope Fire responses to are now medical in nature. On average, Hope responds to a little more than 100 incidents every year. As the number of fire related incidents fall, training becomes even more important to keep firefighters’ skills at a high level.

The Hope Township Fire Department has been responding for the residents of Hope for over 45 years. And while the equipment, personnel and other service requirements of this organization have changed over the years. We will continue to provide the protection that allows the people of this community to live and work in an environment that is a more worry free.