Gratis Fire Department in hot seat

GRATIS, Ohio (WDTN) - The Village of Gratis now only has 8 volunteer firefighters for the more than 900 people who live there. The department responds to about 100 fires every year.

Daniel Chambers is one of the eleven firefighters who submitted a petition to the village council last week, calling for Fire Chief Paul Raab's resignation.

"We presented them with a 3-page letter, there's lots of problems with him wanting to question our officers on scene. Some of us have fire gear that's out of date that's probably considered flammable, our airpacks are out of date. It's not that we don't have the money in the budget, according to him.  He just won't spend it," says Chambers.

The village council chose to keep the fire chief.  As a result, the eleven firefighters resigned. Chambers says they range in experience from two years to more than 30 years.  He says villagers should be worried about their safety.

"The people there need to be really concerned. I mean there are adjoining departments that would respond but you're talking about 5 or 10 minutes and that's life or death," explains Chambers.

And people who live in Gratis say they are fearful.

"It makes you feel, if your house catches on fire, you got nobody. They need to take care of it or something. I'd like to see them get back to work, resolve the problem," comments David Keith.

Chambers says the firefighters would be willing to reconsider their resignations if things changed.

"He would have to step down totally or at least as fire chief, for Gratis to have their department back," says Chambers.

The fire chief didn't return calls for comment.

2 News went to the fire station Sunday evening and the firefighters there say the village council plans to release a statement about the situation Monday.