TFRD Procedures & Guides

_{Last Modified: 06/03/2025 13:10}

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This directive is for incidents occurring in Maumee Bay or Lake Erie. It is not for incidents occurring in the Maumee River or Ottawa River, which will be dispatched as normal ‘River Rescues’ as they always have been.

Due to the recent change this summer in the response capabilities of the USCG Station Toledo to a ‘Scheduled Mission Status Station’, Toledo Fire and Rescue will jointly respond with Oregon Fire, Jerusalem Township Fire, and Washington Township Fire to water-based incidents in the Maumee Bay area.

This will entail the dispatching of Marine 1 with onboard dive capabilities and Marine 3 (if a trained crew is available) to perform search and rescue or recovery operations. All efforts will be coordinated with each other and with the other responding fire jurisdictions and the USCG when available (who is the AHJ on all U.S. navigable waterways).

These search and rescue efforts should always be based upon current and projected weather, sea, and light conditions, the skill of the dispatched crews, and the perceived likelihood of success vs. the risks encountered. Water crews will monitor the assigned Lucas County RCOG channel and marine channel 16 (unless the USCG requests switching to a different marine channel).

In addition to the water units, a TFRD Battalion Chief, Safety Officer, and Medic Unit will be dispatched to Cullen Park to the boat ramp area. This location will serve as the west Command Post (CP) for the incident in conjunction with Oregon and Jerusalem Fire setting up a similar CP on the eastern end of the incident. The Command Posts will serve as staging areas, patient collection points, and to monitor the search efforts. This CP may serve as a Unified Command Post depending on whether Washington Township FD deploys to this position also.

Effective Date: August 1, 2024