ROCHESTER – Firefighters here say more leadership staff, a new emergency medical services division and a new fire station in northwest Rochester are key to keeping up with the city’s growing population over the next few years.

The Rochester Fire Department is proposing an eight-step plan over at least a five-year period to address increasing call volumes as Minnesota’s third-largest city continues to grow.

The plan involves hiring about 15 new employees and creating a new division of emergency medical technicians (EMTs) to shoulder medical emergency calls and calls for lift assistance – people who fell and need help getting up but aren’t injured. That would free up firefighters stationed downtown to move into the northwest part of town, which would reduce ongoing response time problems.

Rochester Fire Chief Eric Kerska told the Rochester City Council Monday the plan would likely help save close to $3 million in operation and construction costs once implemented.

“You’re going to have to spend money on Rochester fire one way or another if the city continues to grow,” Kerska said. “Let’s figure out a way to do it in such a way that we’re effective.”

The plan comes as the city’s Fire Department deals with strained resources as the city continues to grow. The department operates eight crews in five stations, including three crews stationed downtown. Firefighters took 12,147 calls last year, more than 9,000 of which were for medical emergencies or lift assists. That’s also about 1,000 more calls than 2021.

A majority of those calls come from downtown Rochester. Deputy Fire Chief Holly Mulholland said downtown call volumes alone are projected to overwhelm firefighters as soon as next year without more help.

In addition, the Fire Department hopes to improve lagging response times in the northwest, which is projected to grow faster than other parts of the city over the next several years. The department has a seven-minute response time to the neighborhood near Dakota Middle School, according to Mulholland.

The Fire Department hopes to add a new assistant chief position in 2024 or 2025 to focus on community engagement, which Kerska said would help in recruiting future firefighters to diversify the department.

“The community wants us to look more like them,” he said.

From there, the department hopes to hire a supervisor and up to 10 EMTs to staff enough people to serve the downtown area. Another three battalion chiefs would be hired as the city buys land to build a new fire station.

It remains to be seen how soon the city could fund improvements — the council will weigh budget requests later this year — but council members largely seem to support the Fire Department’s goals.

“We have a really unique and long history in our fire department and we need to be proud of that,” Council member Shaun Palmer said.