The Men Who Run Toward the Fire.

Before I asked a single hard question, I wanted to know who I was talking to. That matters.

The men sitting across from me have spent a combined lifetime in the fire service — and you can hear it in how they answer.

I asked the Fire Marshal what his job actually is, because most of us only know the title. His answer reframed the whole conversation. The fire department isn't only the people who show up when something goes wrong — they're also the people working to make sure it never does.

That outreach includes something I think every resident should know about: the department will come to your home and install free smoke and carbon monoxide alarms through a program with the State Fire Marshal's office. No charge. No catch. They'll do a home fire safety walk-through while they're there.

We talked about why those carbon monoxide alarms matter so much. I shared a story about friends in St. Louis whose puppy was acting groggy near a vent. The vet found nothing. It turned out to be carbon monoxide. The dog warned them. The Chief reminded me that humans get the same symptoms — drowsiness, headache, difficulty breathing — and by the time you notice, it may be too late.

The first conversation set the tone for everything that followed. These are not bureaucrats reading from a script. They're operators. And they want you to call them.

Every fire department lives inside a math problem. How many people. How much equipment. How fast can you get there.

I've spent enough time around local government — chair of the Fire Standards & Safety Commission in St. Louis County, and Mayor of Hazelwood — to know that going in. So I asked.

The city has five fire stations — four spread out at the corners of the city and one in the center near City Hall. Every ambulance is what's called an Advanced Life Support unit. That means it's not just a transport van that gets you to a hospital; it's staffed by paramedics with the equipment and medications to start treating heart attacks, strokes, and serious injuries the moment they arrive. Cardiac monitors, IVs, prescription drugs — the back of the truck is closer to an emergency room than a taxi.

Each ambulance costs about $280,000, built on a four-wheel-drive pickup truck frame because Michigan winters don't care about your call volume.

That line stuck with me. Emergency calls are up 31% in the last five years. When all five stations are tied up at the same time, the department falls back on what's called mutual aid — formal agreements where neighboring fire departments cover each other. Farmington Hills participates in two of these agreements, which together cover 22 area departments. If a call comes in here and we're stretched thin, Livonia or Southfield or West Bloomfield sends a truck.

Two years ago, Farmington Hills also began providing ambulance service for the neighboring City of Farmington. That's another two to three calls per day on top of the existing volume. The Chief made a point worth pausing on: because the Farmington Hills Fire Department is a public service and not a private ambulance company, their transport bills are set to cover the actual cost of the service — not to make a profit. They charge what insurance and Medicare will reimburse, and that's it.

Equipment is an expense. Staffing is a commitment.

Every full-time firefighter in Farmington Hills has to hold a long list of certifications: a state paramedic license, the two professional firefighting certifications (Fire I and Fire II), hazardous materials training, and pump operator training so they can run the water systems on a fire engine. The result: any one of them can drive the truck, fight the fire, or treat a heart attack patient. Every single one.

The department also has a smaller group of on-call firefighters — trained volunteers who hold day jobs but respond from home when there's a major incident. Since 2020, fire departments across the country have struggled to recruit them. Farmington Hills used to have between seventy and ninety on-call members; today they have twenty-eight. The Chief was honest with me: he doesn't expect a recruiting push to reverse that trend. The whole model is shifting toward a larger full-time staff.

As volume climbs, the city needs more career staff — and the strategic plan commissioned in 2025 confirmed it. The recommendation: 20 to 24 new firefighters over the next five years. Twelve are in the July budget request. The City Council is the body that decides how the math gets balanced against every other department asking for the same dollars.

I asked about the city's ISO rating. ISO stands for Insurance Services Office, and it's the national organization that grades every fire department in America on how well it can protect a community. The grade runs from 1 (the best) to 10 (the worst), and your city's number directly affects what you pay for homeowners and business insurance. Farmington Hills holds an ISO Class 2 rating.

We also talked about hazardous materials — chemical spills, gas leaks, anything dangerous that gets released. The Fire Prevention Division has one inspector whose only job is to visit local businesses that store dangerous chemicals (the federal government calls these "302 sites") and check on them every year. For larger incidents, a regional team called the Western Wayne Hazmat Team responds with specialized equipment. Their basic approach to arriving at a hazmat scene is a phrase I won't forget:

How do you fight a fire that's actually a chemical reaction?

Lithium-ion is in everything now. Phones, laptops, e-bikes, lawnmowers, scooters, and increasingly, the cars in our garages. The answer, in short: it takes new tools, new tactics, and a lot more water.

The department has equipped itself accordingly. Through grants, they obtained three specialized tools for EV emergencies:

I asked about charging at home. The Marshal's answer was measured. There's nothing inherently wrong with it — but he had recommendations: use a licensed electrician for installation, watch for warning signs, and consider adding a smoke alarm in the garage. If something goes wrong, you want to hear about it quickly.

The Fire Marshal's advice for everyday lithium devices was specific. Always buy UL-listed batteries — that's the small "UL" mark on the label that means an independent safety lab has tested the product. Never mix chargers between devices (the lawnmower charger isn't safe for your phone). Watch for warning signs: a swollen battery, unusual sounds, or one that gets unusually hot. Don't charge devices under blankets, on top of flammable surfaces, or in a hallway or doorway you'd need to use to escape if there were a fire. And whenever you can, charge while you're awake to spot trouble early.

For storage and disposal: regular alkaline AA batteries can be dropped off at the city's Department of Public Works. Larger lithium-ion batteries (from power tools, e-bikes, etc.) should go to a household hazardous waste collection day — check the city website for dates. Don't toss loose batteries together in a drawer; if the metal terminals touch, it can spark a fire. If you have a battery and don't know what to do with it, call the Fire Prevention line at (248) 871-2820 — they'll point you to the right recycler.

When the Chief told me what an ISO Class 2 rating actually meant, I had to ask him to repeat it.

Less than one percent of fire departments in the United States share that classification. One percent. ISO ratings run from 1 to 10, lower being better, and a 1 is essentially unattainable for most municipalities. A 2 is what excellence looks like in practice.

ISO comes through every five years. They evaluate water supply, staffing, equipment, communications, fire prevention, and response times. Every piece of what we've talked about across these five chapters feeds into that score — and the score, in turn, feeds into the insurance premiums every homeowner and business in this city pays.

The Chief walked me through the fleet:

That last detail floored me. In a real structure fire, you can't see anything. Television does not depict what a fire actually is. Close your eyes — that's what they see. Thermal imaging cameras help find heat sources, but firefighters navigate by memory, by staying low, by never leaving the hose line. The hose line is the way back out.

I asked the Chief about the future. His answer was characteristically practical. Run volume is up 31 percent. Staffing has to follow. Equipment has to be on a sustainable replacement cycle — fire engines last 10 to 15 years, an ambulance only 5 to 7 because it runs nearly 24 hours a day. And training: Michigan requires a baseline; Farmington Hills exceeds it deliberately, because fires are low-frequency, high-risk events, and the only way to be ready is to train for them when you're not.

The most important takeaway from these five conversations: the fire department isn't only a place to call when something is on fire. They're a resource — for inspections, for free smoke alarms, for advice about your generator or your e-bike or your laptop or the strange smell coming from your dryer. They want the call before there's an emergency. That's the whole point of prevention.