By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Northfield Area Fire Chief Tom Nelson recently presented a report on the department’s budget, and one focus area of questions was the number of calls that NAFRS responds to at the two colleges. He cited the fact that the department maintains a significant amount of equipment that, while rarely used, is maintained in case of an emergency at either school:
“There’s a readiness that we need to be able to handle, huge, multifamily units [the dorms]. And that does come at a readiness cost that the rest of us who are living within basically Northfield and the larger district pay.” – Tom Nelson, Northfield Area Fire Chief at the 7/22/2025 Northfield City Council Meeting
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He noted that the number of calls to St. Olaf and Carleton has been trending downwards over the last several years, in part because of collaborative work with the two institutions. Nelson is Northfield’s first full-time Fire Chief in decades, and with it has come the role of being the fire code official. Nelson has been able to work with the facilities and security teams at both colleges to help them respond to fire calls. By building relationships with the college staff, Nelson says that it helps the department respond to calls more cost-effectively:
Picture By Logan Wells/KYMN News
“But there are so many calls that we can get, Jesse [referring to the Assistant Chief] or me there first. To give a size-up. What’s going on? What do we need or hold the troops? So it’s kind of like on the chessboard, you’re protecting your valuable pieces if we can prevent wear and tear or an accident or anything else in a million-dollar piece of apparatus.” – Tom Nelson, Northfield Area Fire Chief at the 7/22/2025 Northfield City Council Meeting
When asked if the colleges were able to help fund the department, Nelson said that there were conversations and options that could be explored, noting that there was interest in funding specific projects:
“I can’t remember what year it is, but they put in money toward the aerial truck that we have now. So it’s there. It’s been, you know, kind of a every-20-year kind of thing, but having some kind of commitment I think would help all of us in that.” – Tom Nelson, Northfield Area Fire Chief at the 7/22/2025 Northfield City Council Meeting
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