Montgomery Township's Board of Supervisors voted Monday night to hire 11 more career firefighters after a drop in volunteers caused some weekend emergency response times to exceed national standards.

The board also voted to establish a "fire tax" to pay for it. A final vote is scheduled to be held at the December 15 meeting.

While the township's five career firefighters typically respond to emergencies within five minutes, well below the national standard of nine minutes, Montgomery Township Fire Chief Bill Wiegman said it sometimes takes his department's volunteers, who fully staff the weekend shifts, more than 10 minutes to arrive at emergencies.

"Not only are you decreasing victim survivability and allowing for fire [to] spread," Wiegman said, "you're also putting your people in grea

See Full Page