Paducah Mutual Aid Keeps Community Safe, Fire Services Sharp

Paducah Site and West McCracken Fire Department firefighters work together during a mutual aid drill. Their working relationship proves valuable to responding to emergency situations on the Paducah Site and in the broader community.

PADUCAH, Ky. — The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management Paducah Site and the West McCracken Fire Department (WMFD) have benefited from a mutual aid agreement to enhance emergency response capabilities since 2019.

By sharing labor and resources and partnering in training exercises, the collaboration refines the skills of Paducah Site Fire Services personnel and expands the local team to ensure a safer community.

“Together, the members of West McCracken and Paducah fire services routinely train, support first response and share lessons to respond in the best possible way to calls for help,” Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Safety System Oversight Brad Pont said. “This working relationship proves valuable for on-scene management of an active emergency or drill.”

Mission Conversion Services Alliance (MCSA), the PPPO operations and site mission support contractor, manages emergency services at the Paducah Site. The mutual aid agreement supports WMFD — an all-volunteer organization — through MCSA’s ability to respond with full-time, highly trained service personnel providing firefighting, rescue and first-responder medical services.

“In addition to providing assistance to WMFD, it is beneficial in keeping fire services personnel sharp on skills such as structural firefighting, victim extrication from vehicle accidents, first-responder emergency medical care and brush firefighting,” Paducah Site Fire Chief and Fire Protection Program Manager Darrell Howard said. “It is a win-win, no doubt.”

The Paducah Site has responded to about 20 requests for assistance from WMFD so far this year. Last year, the site responded to 115 requests from West McCracken.

“We are experiencing a time when volunteer recruitment and retention are proving more difficult nationwide,” said Corey Howard, an MCSA employee who recently began serving as the new WMFD chief. “Access to these additional resources and manpower is effectively helping us overcome that challenge.”

WMFD Capt. Chuck Bean added, “As an all-volunteer staff, we never know who’s going to be able to show up.”

Bean, a retired fire commander from Paducah Site deactivation and remediation contractor Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, is grateful to DOE for helping enable the mutual aid partnership.

“Without the support of DOE, we couldn’t be as available as we are,” he said.

-Contributor: Katherine Mueller-White