The First Baptist Church of Sandy Springs, Ga., recently held its fourth annual “Honor Our Public Servants” worship service and ceremony. The church’s former pastor started the service shortly after the city, which is a suburb of Atlanta, was incorporated in November 2005.

Besides firefighters and police officers, the church also honors judges and city council members, as well as their staffs and their families. The idea is that because all of these people work together to make the city a good place to live and work, they should be honored together. The event includes guest speakers, awards for dedicated service, music and lunch.

What a contrast to the community support — more accurately, the lack thereof — demonstrated in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Ill. One of the burb’s more opinionated residents made headlines at a recent finance meeting by protesting the fact that 27 of 28 of the village’s union firefighters make more than $100,000 per year. Yes, that’s a lot of money compared to some fire departments. However, Oak Brook is a very affluent, mostly gated community of 8,900 residents, which swells during the week when more than 90,000 office workers invade the village. None of the village’s firefighters currently live in its environs.

Oak Brook residents don’t pay property, food or beverage taxes; free municipal services are included when one can afford to buy a mega-house in the village. Sales tax revenue from the very-high-end Oak Brook Center mall supports village services.

A public-access video of this meeting found its way onto You Tube. In the video, a personal-injury lawyer referred to firefighters as “street people” and suggested that Oak Brook cut its budget by “one fireman a month.” He further suggested that the village go back to volunteer firefighters and rely on back up from two nearby fire districts. Unfortunately, Oak Brook’s neighboring departments are struggling with budgets and staffing. Would your neighbor respond to an incident in your town if it meant taking coverage away from his or her community?

Interestingly, the Oak Brook Fire Department’s ladder truck has been out of service for eight months, allegedly because there’s no money to fix it, and the department’s customer service now is a voicemail machine — despite the fact that village officials are sitting on a reserve of $13 million. Why aren’t the village’s residents protesting?

A chief recently commented that during the ’90s, when budgets were pretty solid, no one was talking about eliminating firefighters or closing fire stations. “Are we so much safer now that communities can get rid of cops and firefighters?” he asked.

As far as the arguments over firefighters’ pensions, we are just beginning to understand the health risks associated with being in the fire service. I’m not sure who is doing the research on how long retired firefighters live or what they die from, but I’d bet anything that the physical and mental stresses that firefighters incur take a serious toll on their health. Sleep deprivation, adrenalin rushes, heat exposure, dehydration, carcinogen exposure, air quality and smoke inhalation top the list of these stresses — and the list gets longer every year.

The fire service has outgrown its moniker. Fire departments today respond to all hazards and all disasters, and that message needs to be communicated loud and clear in every town, village, city and county. Any fire department that issues an annual report indicating a decrease in fire calls also must detail all of the other incidents to which it responds. Extrication, rescues, wash-downs, EMS, accidents, white powder, hazmat — today’s emergency response demands personnel be highly trained in a plethora of disciplines and skilled in teamwork.

It’s wonderful when firefighters are honored the way they are in Sandy Springs. What’s more important is that residents in places like Oak Brook understand that all of the high-tech equipment and array of emergency vehicles does little good when there’s no one around to drive the vehicle, pull a hose line or start CPR. In emergency response, time is of the essence. Tick tock.