Two months after a historic church suffered major fire damage and a Wichita fire truck was prematurely called back from the scene, the city and county have reached a new agreement on sharing resources to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again, officials said Wednesday.
The new agreement places the decision of whether to release equipment in the hands of the on-scene commander at an emergency, said County Manager Michael Scholes and City Manager Robert Layton.
The new accord on shared support was reached Aug. 30. The agreement rises from the ashes of the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Andale.
A lightning strike on June 24 set fire to the church. It suffered an estimated $1 million in damage after a Wichita ladder truck was pulled off the fire line by someone in the chain of command at the city fire department.
The county doesn’t have that type of truck, and county officials say the damage would have been less extensive if the truck had stayed on the scene fighting the fire.
(Read more: Wichita Eagle)