Putnam County completing construction on two new fire stations to strategically spread resources across its 405 square miles and reduce emergency response times.
Fire Chief Jeff Hicks said the department is finishing the final two stations in its current plan, with Station 14 at Austin Bottom expected to open next. Hicks said the department intends to move a part-time staff member to the new facility to ensure coverage is distributed more effectively all four quadrants of the county.
“Currently we don’t have a plan to build any more (stations),” Hicks said. “People and tankers would be more so things that we would need in the foreseeable future. We there needs to be a point at some time when we have a reserve tanker and a reserve engine or two and we’re not there yet.”
Hicks said the new facilities are designed to ensure more residents live within five miles of a station. Hicks said this distance is a critical metric for Insurance Service Office (ISO) ratings, which are utilized by the majority of insurance companies to determine homeowner premiums.
“In the end, you know, you try to save your customers, your citizens, money on on their house insurance and that’s what it is about,” Hicks said. “So everything we do we look at, ‘Hey, is this going to impact ISO? Is there some way we can maybe instead of what we thought we wanted to do, maybe we can do something else here to help the citizens in ISO?'”
Hicks said the department maintains its ISO rating through extensive documentation, training, and coordination with 11 different water utility districts. Hicks said the department also monitors call volumes twice a year to determine where to station personnel, noting that a proposed 900-home subdivision in the southern part of the county may require future reevaluation of staffing.
“We usually look at what area has the most calls in it,” Hicks said. “And that’s where we started filling people in first.”
Hicks said the county will have 14 stations in service once the current projects at Austin Bottom and Gentry are completed. Hicks said the department does not have plans for additional stations in its current five-year plan, focusing instead on future needs for personnel and reserve tankers.
“The last, you know, several years, we have been really blessed,” Hicks said. “We’ve come a long way from when I started over 25 years ago. You get commissioners in there and and leaders like Randy (Porter) that realize, ‘Yeah, your department doesn’t make money and we’re gonna have to spend money on you, but it’s necessary,'” Hicks said.
Hicks said the department is ready to move furniture and trucks into the Austin Bottom station as soon as final maintenance and pest control tasks are finished.
