Background

Situated in the heart of Leelanau County, Michigan, Cedar Area Fire & Rescue (CAFR) is organized through an interlocal agreement between Centerville, Cleveland, Kasson and Solon Townships to provide emergency response within the townships' borders and to the unincorporated villages of Maple City and Cedar. Our single fire station is located just south of Victoria Creek in the Polish historical town of Cedar in Leelanau County. We are a combination department with full-time and part-time staff who provide primary firefighting, emergency medical services, and technical rescue response for our community 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

As of the 2010 Census, CAFR serves 5,531 year-round residents throughout our four townships. Summer residents and a vigorous local tourism industry multiply our summer population from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Centerville, Cleveland, Kasson and Solon Townships account for 25.42% of the total population and 21% of the geographic area of Leelanau County. We cover 121.1 square miles of land and 45.8 square miles of water totaling almost 167 square miles of response area (72.5% land & 27.4% water). Additionally, CAFR provides service to 9,217 acres of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (12.9% of the total park area), which receives over 1.1 million visitors annually. Due to the presence of the national park and related regional tourism, department responses increase dramatically in the warmer months to provide emergency services to the many thousands of part-time residents and tourists who visit the area every year. CAFR is first due on the largest coverage area of any department in the area and typically receives the second highest volume of calls for service in the county (550 to 625 calls for service per year).

With our three-person duty crew , CAFR provides 24/7 Advanced Life Support (ALS) care and emergency transport for patients. Additionally, CAFR provides primary fire and hazardous incident response in our jurisdiction with several apparatus including a fire engine, water tanker, brush truck, and a tracked Kubota UTV. These units carry specialized equipment which allow us to manage incidents including structural and wildland fires, motor vehicle accidents, hazardous materials incidents, and ice, water, and wilderness technical rescues. Additionally, according to agreements maintained with several other local fire departments, CAFR provides and receives mutual aid for large-scale and overlapping incidents as necessary. Our department currently has an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) rating of 9-10. This rating reflects a multitude of criteria that we use to better provide service to our community.