12/22/2025
Ice is not safe yet.
A message from your Fire Chief:
I photographed this ice shanty on Manistee Lake today after responding to a call. There was also someone standing on the ice shelf on the opposite side of this shanty to the north.
Current conditions: 37°F, steady rain, junk ice, with the Little Manistee River current just a couple of hundred yards away, creating open water.
I've been in the fire service for over 40 years. I've commanded disaster responses across the country. And I'm asking you - not as a rule enforcer, but as the person who will send my volunteers out to pull you from that water:
Please don't fish this ice right now.
When you go through, it's not just about you. It's about the person walking their dog or driving by who hears those screams - the kind of screams that only come from someone very close to losing their life - and has to fumble for their phone with shaking hands to call 9-1-1. The person who has to stay composed enough to explain where you are and what's happening while those screams echo in their ears. They'll carry those sounds for the rest of their life.
It's about the 9-1-1 dispatcher taking that frantic call, working to calm a terrified caller enough to get critical information, keeping them on the line, coordinating multiple agencies, knowing every second counts - and then living with the outcome of that call long after their shift ends.
It's about the deputy or trooper halfway across the county who drops everything and races toward the scene, lights and sirens, trying to get there to help in whatever way they can.
It's about the volunteer firefighters who'll leave their Sunday dinner, their kids' basketball games, their family time - pulling on turnout gear and heading to the station, putting on ice rescue suits and running through ice rescue procedures in their heads, knowing what they're about to face.
It's about the paramedics who'll work revival efforts all the way to the hospital, doing everything in their power, and then having to live with whatever the outcome is. It's about the ER docs and nurses who'll take over that fight. Every single one of them will carry this call with them.
We will come for you. That's what we do. But we shouldn't have to come for you because you chose to ignore dangerous conditions that any experienced ice fisherman knows to respect.
The fish will still be there when it's safe. My firefighters' safety - and yours - can't wait for hindsight.
Stay off the ice until conditions improve.
Chief Fred LaPoint
Stronach Township Fire Department
