County Wide Fire Department

[ECFD924]

Does anyone know of an all volunteer county wide fire department that I could contact to obtain information? Our county is funded through a millage on property tax, the county disperses approximately $440,000 to 11 rural volunteer fire departments that seem to be working toward 11 different goals. Each department is allowed to make their own purchases, etc... A few of us have been throwing around the idea that maybe if we could get eveyone to begin working toward a common goal then maybe we could get some things accomplished. There are areas of our county that are outside of 5 miles from a fire station which results in higher insurance premiums. I feel that if we went to this type of system we could build more stations, disperse apparatus and therefore offer better coverage within the county. Any thoughts?, Ideas?, comments, suggestions please post with them. Thanks for your time and help.

[PyroSlayer]

ECFD924, I sent you an email regarding this thread.

[lmrchief2]

Just a little information for you but not sure I am correct. Afew of the guys on the department went for a tanker shuttle class and came back exited about how this county runs their department?

Not sure how they work but I think they all get together and do the major purchases. I do know that the guys said all the trucks are set up identical in the county-not sure if this covers everything or not.

The county is Grand Traverse MI. I tried to pull them up through the .com and could not get any information on them. However, Traverse City which is located in the county and from what I understand is not with this group was. They had a business phone listed since they are in the county they could probably give you the name of a contact. I searched under Michigan Departments/ Grand Traverse area and they came up.

Like I said this was a few years ago and may not hold true anymore but it is a start for you.

[Bulldog]

Anderson County SC

Anderson County SC has 27 stations in a county wide system. Their first stations were in the mid 60's and their latest about 1990. The county provides the Engines and each station buys their tankers, rescues, brush rigs etc. The county also has a ladder co. that is jointly manned by several of the stations.

Anderson County FD

[TillerMan25]

I beleive Chesterfield County Virginia is set up the same way. Not too sure of the link to their Website, since FH.com decided to make it nearly impossible and confusing to search for Webpages.

There are a few counties in SC that are like that, it's kinda interesting how they run.

[N2DFire]

Chesterfield is a combination department where career out number volunteer 2 to 1 and the web page is http://www.co.chesterfield.va.us/Pub...re/default.asp

Note - the Career vs Volly comment wasn't a smack aginst either, I was just pointing that out since ECFD924 was looking for an all volunteer system.

[ECFD924]

Thanks everyone!

[cmjones]

Kershaw Co. in SC is countywide with a few exceptions:

City of Camden Fire Dept. is separate
Lugoff Fire Dept. is separate
Buffalo-Mt. Pisgah Fire District is separate

The County Fire Service has 11 stations that are controlled by the Fire Marshall and Asst. Fire Marshall. The county does all truck purchases and maintenance. They also purchase all equipment and divide among the 11 stations. I think each station gets 2 sets of gear each year and 2 airpacks each year, plus misc. things that come up. The county issues pagers. I'm not real sure how they do radios. The chief's of the individual stations control their departments under the Fire Marshall's guidelines.

Personally, the county system is a neat thing. You have a larger tax base which means more money, but you will be competing against x number of other stations. If you get one setup make sure you figure in some guidelines about the dividing up equipment among the stations.

[quietone]

another example

Boone County Fire Protection District which is the area that surrounds Columbia, Missouri is a county wide district. I had the opportunity to visit with them for a day and was really quite impressed. BCFPD provides a number of services and has a FEMA task force. You can see more of the benefits of a county wide fire department at www.bcfdmo.com

They had their difficulties when they first started too as many of the members will tell you but their efforts appear to have paid of several times over.