When the sirens do not stop: Lowell’s firefighters face a season of strain

16 Aug. 2025

By Justin Tiemeyer - Contributing Writer

On Monday, July 21, 2025, a Van’s Aircraft RV-14A airplane, occupied by Kevin Laurence of Presque Isle and Paul Shalk of Rogers City, plummeted from the sky and crashed into Whistle Stop Self Storage, killing both the pilot and the passenger. Not four months prior, The Lowell Ledger reached out to Lowell Area Fire Department Chief, Cory Velzen, about how his department would handle a plane crash within the greater Lowell vicinity.

The conversation was prompted by Council Member Jim Salzwedel’s comments about the “terrible plane crashes” across the United States, during a Feb. 3 city council meeting. Salzwedel’s concern followed high-profile airplane crashes in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, during the last week of January. During Chief Velzen’s annual budget presentation, Salzwedel asked, “How well are we prepared?”

“We are very lucky to have subject matter experts,” Velzen said. “They will train throughout the country on how to deal with plane crashes.”

Velzen, himself, attended a training event over a decade ago run by Kent County Emergency Management, featuring a mockup triage for a mass casualty event, but the department’s greatest strength, in his opinion, is that two of Lowell’s paid on-call firefighters work full time for the Gerald R. Ford International Airport Fire Rescue team. Both subject matter experts responded to the call, and one of them arrived with the initial team.

While Lowell took point for the seven-hour fire fight at Whistle Stop, resulting from the RV-14A crash, the Gerald R. Ford Airport Fire Department was the first mutual aid department Velzen reached out to. Throughout the afternoon, and into the evening, they would be joined by Ada, Cascade, Alto, Caledonia, Grattan, Saranac, Cannon, Plainfield, Alpine, Gaines, and Sparta fire departments, as well.

“I really credit our firefighters,” Velzen said, “not only just the initial tech and their tactics in what they did, but just, as well, in our mutual aid partners and all the departments that did show up.”

Velzen shed some light on the scale of an operation involving 13 area fire departments. Each department providing assistance had to pull other departments to cover their areas, while they were out of town fighting the Lowell fire. This has the potential to cause a ripple effect, well beyond Kent County. In particular, Velzen thanked fire departments, from Ionia County, not only for covering mutual aid departments but for responding to the fire themselves. In the past, Kent and Ionia fire departments were on different radio frequencies, which risked miscommunication and delayed response. Velzen reported that 90% of those communication issues were resolved over the past year.

In total, the Lowell Area Fire Department was on location at Whistle Stop Self Storage for over 24 hours, controlling the scene so the National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration, and Kent County Sheriff’s Office could conduct their investigations into the cause of the fatal crash.

“We are absolutely still reeling from this,” Velzen said on July 24, a full three days after the crash. “Even today, fatigue is set in to the staff.”

The plane crash took place on a Monday, and the following Tuesday, Velzen called in the Cascade Fire Department to staff Lowell Fire from 12-7 p.m. in order to allow his crew to unwind, unpack, and keep off of calls following their all-nighter.

“In any event, as you understand, we gotta be able to rehab our personnel, feed them accordingly, and allow them time to recuperate,” Velzen said.

Shortly after Cascade Fire took over operations that day, Aero Med airlifted a critically injured motorcycle rider, who was rear-ended by a car, whose driver has been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. With two dead, in an inferno, caused by an airplane crash, one critically injured in a gruesome car versus motorcycle accident, and the Kent County Youth Fair bringing 40-50,000 visitors to town, increasing the likelihood of medical calls, the worry of firefighter fatigue through the end of the summer has been significant. “It’s not going to let go,” Velzen said.

This is where the secondary ripple effect comes in. Not only were there multiple fire departments affected, directly or indirectly, by the airplane fire and subsequent emergencies, but there were also the friends and family members of the firefighters involved. In Lowell alone, 27 paid on-call firefighters donated their time and efforts to helping others, despite having other priorities in their own personal lives - spouses, kids, people who depend on them. “For them to drop all that at a moment’s notice for an extended amount of time, it will affect them for weeks,” Velzen said.

On the flip side, the same community that Velzen and company show up for every day showed up, in turn, for the Lowell Area Fire Department in their time of need. The firefighters needed food and drinks on the night of the airplane fire. Velzen handed off tasks to people, and the things they needed just showed up. According to Bonnie Baird, whose son is a Lowell firefighter, BC Pizza provided 15 pizzas, Meijer sent six cases of water, and Sergeant Scott Dietrich, public information officer for KCSO, added that the BP gas station owner in town donated drinks, as well. Chief Velzen shared his appreciation for all of the support, describing it as a “testament to our community in Lowell.”