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Monona fire chief reports vehicle fire at 3825 Monroe Drive, 80-unit building evacuated; GEMT funding approved federally
Summary
Fire chief described a vehicle fire in a lower parking level that displaced residents from an 80-unit building, praised mutual aid and the Red Cross, announced federal approval of the GEMT program and described hiring progress for full-time and volunteer staff.
At the Jan. 22 Public Safety Committee meeting, the Monona fire chief described a difficult vehicle fire in the lower parking level of the 3825 Monroe Drive apartment building that briefly displaced residents and required multi-agency response.
"We have 80 units in that building. So, having that many folks displaced in this bad of weather that we were having at that time, Red Cross did a great job," the fire chief said, describing evacuations and sheltering support. The chief said two staff injuries were identified after the incident; both were minor and are being followed up.
The department and mutual-aid partners from Madison and Maple Bluff assisted on scene; the vehicle suffered catastrophic damage and investigators could not determine a specific ignition source because of the extent of the damage, the chief said. Power to the building was reported restored later the same day, and building ownership was working to get residents back in as soon as it was safe.
The chief also announced that the federal government has approved Wisconsin’s Ground Emergency Medical Transport (GEMT) program, clearing a final hurdle for the state to make retroactive lump-sum payments to public ambulance services. "So we're expecting. The full roll out by March of this year and it will be retroactive back to January 1, 2023," the chief said. He described GEMT as a mechanism by which publicly owned ambulance services can submit Medicaid-transport data to recover shortfalls through an annual lump-sum payment.
On staffing, the fire chief said two full-time staff resigned at the end of the prior year; one has stayed on as a limited-term employee to help cover shifts. The department had received five full-time applicants at the time of the meeting and planned interviews for volunteer firefighters as part of a broader recruitment push. The chief said interviews were scheduled and the department aimed to bring on multiple volunteers in mid-February.
The committee acknowledged the department's after-action review plans and said formal debriefings were scheduled to capture operational lessons from the incident.
