Rhinelander’s helpers: Fire, police stretch budgets, staffing to serve growing city

When tragedy strikes or danger looms, Mr. Rogers famously told generations of children to “look for the helpers.” In Rhinelander, those helpers are closer — and arrive faster — than most residents might realize. Fire Chief Adam “AJ” Johnson and Police Chief Josh Chiamulera laid out the scope of their departments’ work at a “Meet the Chiefs” public forum at City Hall last Wednesday evening, painting a picture of two agencies doing far more than fighting fires and writing tickets — and doing it with budgets and staffing levels that haven’t kept pace with the demands placed on them.
Wheels rolling in under a minute
In his presentation, Johnson noted that the department takes great pride in their quick response times which they know save lives. Last month, the fastest of the department’s three shifts had wheels rolling out the station door in an average of 56 seconds. The slowest? One minute and ten seconds.
“Our response time is very, very good, and our success in our outcomes for some of these medical calls is fantastic,” Johnson said. “How close and how soon we can get to where we need to be here in Rhinelander helps tremendously.”
That speed also factors into the city’s ISO rating — a score used by insurance companies to assess fire risk. Rhinelander holds a rating of three, an exceptionally low number for a community of fewer than 10,000 people.

“We’re a three in a community of less than 10,000 — that is unheard of,” Johnson said. “The higher the number, the more your insurance rates are going to go up — commercial, residential, so on and so forth. So we help bring some of that cost down.”
More than fire trucks and ambulances
The department’s 18 firefighters — most of them certified paramedics — operate two engines, a 75-foot aerial ladder truck and three advanced life support ambulances. In 2022 the department logged 2,346 calls for service, with EMS runs accounting for more than 70 percent of the total. Johnson said 2026 is on pace to exceed that, with EMS calls already running at roughly 78 percent of volume in 2025.
One of the drivers of that number: falls. Johnson said Oneida County has one of the highest fall rates in the state — a statistic sourced from the Wisconsin Department of Rural Health — with residents calling for help after falling at home, sliding from wheelchairs or needing assistance getting up.
Beyond emergency response, the department conducts 811 scheduled commercial fire inspections this year alone, trains school staff on fire evacuation timing, runs live fire extinguisher demonstrations for businesses, and shows up at community events from the Fourth of July parade to the YMCA’s Not-So-Scary Halloween trail.
Johnson also noted that the department trains all city staff in CPR and first aid.
Same badge count as 1969
If the fire department is stretched, the police department is running a deficit that dates back more than half a century.
“If we were fully staffed, we would be operating with the same number of officers since the 1970s,” Chiamulera said.
Right now the department isn’t even at that number. Two patrol positions have been vacant since January, meaning officers are carrying a caseload that has only grown while the roster has shrunk. Chiamulera said he’s found himself responding to calls he likely wouldn’t have in prior years — just to give his officers a chance to catch up on reports.
The department operates with six patrol officers, four patrol sergeants, two detective sergeants, one officer in a drug unit and a chief — all working 12-hour shifts in a city that swells with seasonal visitors every summer.
“We have 20,000-plus individuals that come into our town every day for work and shopping and eating and hanging out,” Chiamulera said. “It is daunting, but we do a good job, and we offer a good product for what we have.”
A department that wears many hats
Like their counterparts at the fire station, local police officers do far more than respond to calls, Chiamulera stressed.The department runs a deflection program pairing low-level drug offenders with a grant-funded recovery coach rather than sending them through the court system. It operates a canine unit — the only one in Oneida County — that regularly assists the sheriff’s department. Officers conduct civilian active shooter response training at churches, schools and businesses, carry out alcohol license compliance checks, escort championship sports teams through downtown and maintain a free NARCAN distribution box at the station.
Two administrative staff members — down from three — handle roughly 30 open records requests per week, many of them from out-of-state true crime enthusiasts and content creators seeking squad car and body camera footage. Sitting through an hour-long video to redact sensitive information takes an hour of staff time. Multiply that across six officers and multiple cameras on a major call, and a single incident can consume a full workday of administrative labor, the chief noted.
“It’s great — I have no issue with it,” Chiamulera said of the requests. “But it’s just the sheer amount of time.”
Looking ahead
Both chiefs pointed to the same underlying reality: flat or shrinking budgets meeting rising costs and rising call volumes.
Johnson noted that fire trucks now cost upward of $1.5 million and require a four-to-five year wait after ordering. The department’s current station, he said, has structural problems severe enough that a fire truck can no longer be parked in one bay without risking damage to the floor. A new public safety building has been discussed, but Johnson said the lack of buildable land in a city surrounded by wetlands is a significant obstacle.
Chiamulera’s department is operating on a $2.5 million budget in 2026. Adjusted for inflation from 2014, that budget should be closer to $3 million. Despite the constraints, both men said the standard of care the departments deliver is something the community can count on 24/7/365.