Blair Township Emergency Services

In 1951, the Grawn Civil Defense Corp was started to provide aid to area residences. In 1957, we received our first ambulance and was operated by the non-profit organization. It was used until funds could be raised to purchase our first new ambulance in 1960, which was a 1959 Cadillac. August 1981, the apparatus was moved from the Brook St location to the 633 location in which we currently reside. After the defeat of a county wide ambulance millage in 1983, the Blair Township Board contracted services with the Grawn Volunteer Fire Department and Auxiliary Corp. An ambulance millage was passed in November of 1984. Blair Township gained custody of the ambulance and officially licensed it as a basic life support unit through the State of Michigan on October 6th, 1989. In 1994, Blair Township hired a paid fire chief. We began the process of changing our agency EMS license to advanced life support (ALS) care. In November of 1995, the residents of Blair Township approved an increase in their ambulance millage from 0.5 to 1.5 mills to support the effort. December 29th 1995, a tire grinder at Carl’s Retread caught fire. The fire burned for twenty-three (23) days. We were assisted by firefighters from 30 different departments. ALS equipment was purchased and paid staff was hired and we officially were licensed as an ALS unit September 1st 1997 with a “go-live” date of October 1st 1997. The full-time staff unionized International Association of Fire Fighters on April 4th 2004. Today our full-time staff consists of 9 duty personnel, the Fire Chief, and the Medical Director. We have 36 part-time and paid-on-call (part-paid) staff. We staff three (3) providers twenty-four hours a day and rely on paid-on-call members for larger scale emergencies and secondary EMS calls. Our ALS coverage area consists of four-hundred forty-four square miles, our fire coverage area consists of ninty (90) square miles, and EMS and fire combined we run approximately calls per year.