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.

Five fire stations. Four at the corners of the city, one at the center near City Hall. Every ambulance is an advanced life support unit — not a transport van. They carry drug boxes, cardiac monitors, and the kind of tools that turn the back of a truck into something close to an emergency room.

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

That line stuck with me. Runs are up 31% in the last five years. When every station is committed, the department leans on mutual aid agreements with Oakland County to the north and the Western Wayne County group of 22 departments. Livonia. Southfield. West Bloomfield. They back each other up.

Two years ago, Farmington Hills also took on EMS service for the City of Farmington itself. That's another two-to-three calls per day. The Chief made a point worth pausing on: because Farmington Hills is a public department and not a for-profit ambulance company, their transport rates are set to recover costs — not to generate margin.

Equipment is an expense. Staffing is a commitment.

Every career firefighter in Farmington Hills has to hold a paramedic license, Fire I and II certifications, hazmat training, and pump operations. They have to engineer the apparatus, work a structure fire, and run an advanced life support call. Every one of them.

Since 2020, there's been a national shortage of paid-on-call firefighters. Farmington Hills used to have between seventy and ninety. Today they have twenty-eight. The Chief was honest with me: he doesn't think a hiring blitz will reverse that trend. The model is shifting.

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. The Fire Prevention Division has an inspector dedicated to what's called a 302 site — facilities holding a regulated quantity of chemicals — and visits each one annually. For larger incidents, the Western Wayne Hazmat Team responds. Their approach to 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 advice for everyday lithium devices was specific. Buy UL-listed batteries. Don't mix and match chargers. Watch for swelling, noises, or excessive heat. Don't charge under covers, near flammable material, or in your path of egress. Charge while you're awake.

For storage and disposal: alkaline AAs can go to DPW. Larger lithium-ion batteries go to a household hazardous waste day. Don't pile loose batteries in a drawer — terminals touching can cause a fire. And the Fire Prevention line at (248) 871-2820 can connect you with a specialized 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.