Hudson Fire Dept. featured in Wisconsin Fire Journal

• Hudson Fire Department story in Wisconsin Fire Journal

The Wisconsin Fire Journal story on the Hudson Fire Department includes photos of Chief Jim Frye. He’s shown above, left, in front of the fire station with firefighter Bob Schmitz.

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The Hudson Fire Department is the featured firefighting service in the January-February edition of the Wisconsin Fire Journal, the official publication of the Wisconsin State Firefighter’s Association.

The two-page spread by writer Pete Wicklund includes five photographs and many facts about the Hudson department.

Readers learn that it was formed in April 1873 in response to a rash of fires the previous year.

The department serves about 25,000 people in a 45-square-mile district that includes the city of Hudson, village of North Hudson, town of Hudson and the northern third of the town of Troy.

It has 40 members who receive $20 per call on average. The officers receive an additional stipend.

The department also has a full-time fire inspector (Dave Krupich) and a part-time clerical assistant (Miranda Kustrich), according to the profile.

It’s equipped with three engines, a 95-foot ladder truck, two tankers, two brush trucks, a Suburban command vehicle, two Zodiac boats for water rescues and a 20-foot trailer that hauls gear for cleaning up hazardous materials.

Chief Frye is reported saying that Hudson firefighters would respond to about 350 calls in 2008, after having answered a record 452 calls in 2007.

“We’ve had fairly good success at recruiting, but staffing is going to be a forever (issue),” Frye is quoted as saying.

The article notes that Frye has served the department 29 years and that his father was a Hudson firefighter for 42 years.

“Frye said that preliminary planning is under way for a new public safety building that will house the police department, EMS headquarters and a satellite station for the fire department. That building is planned for the city’s east side,” Wicklund writes.

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