Fire assessment workshops begin next week
Bradford County Fire Rescue responded to a shed fire on Jan. 24 at the 16000 block of Northeast 19th Avenue. The fire was spreading to a nearby home, but firefighters prevented further spread. No injuries were reported.
BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
The living quarters for Bradford County firefighters at Station 10 are complete and a ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 31 to celebrate.
The ribbon cutting will take place nearly a year after breaking ground thanks to the financial donation from Vincent Esson and the Keystone Heights RV resort, which fully funded the project.
Station 10 on County Road 21B in Speedville was completed and dedicated to former tax collector, the late Teila Norman Pearson, in 2019. Pearson founded a satellite office for the county at the Santa Fe College Watson Center. That office was moved into Station 10, which was built on land donated by the college.
Since the dedication, the satellite office has been up and running, but the lack of a separate living quarters has prevented a full-time fire rescue team from being stationed there.
Fire Chief Ben Carter explained that the firefighters from the Theressa station will be relocated to Speedville, while the EMS crew will remain in Theressa. No additional staffing will be required to operate both stations and spreading those resources will provide better coverage to the area, he said. Many employees are dual certified in fighting fires and emergency medical services. A fire truck has the same life-saving equipment available as an ambulance, lacking only the ability to transport patients, he said. Likewise, a dual certified paramedic in Theressa can hop into a fire truck if needed.
“You know, some people have questioned, ‘Why are there two fire stations five miles apart from each other?’ But that is the national standard. The NFPA recommends that there’s a fire station every five miles,” Carter said. While that is not achievable for a small county like Bradford, in this one case, it has happened. “It’s been kind of a blessing in disguise that we’re able to now get a little bit closer to that national standard, at least in that area,” he said.
Getting Station 10 built and in operation has been important to Commissioner Danny Riddick, but with public workshops on a proposed fire assessment on property owners beginning next month, Riddick recently said the county may need to close some stations.
“We’re going to, I hope, have some very good discussions about our fire department because I know who’s going to take the heat on the assessments,” he said during a Jan. 7 meeting, pointing out there would now be two stations in his district. “We really need to look at closing some of these stations. We when we’re going into this, before we really get into assessments, we need to see which stations we need open and close the other ones.”
Riddick said he had already been talking to Theressa citizens about it as well as Carter and County Manager Scott Kornegay.
“You can be talking to them on your own, but we’re going to catch the heat on this assessment, so we need to get it together, know exactly which ones we need open and why, and what we’re going to do to improve them,” he said.
Carter was cautious about closing any existing station, saying that in addition to the lost coverage, home insurance ratings would be affected.
“So, I think the downside of closing the stations greatly outweigh the benefit that would be gained from the financial savings,” he said. The cost of a station comes down to a monthly utility bill, according to Carter. Personnel are the expensive part. “Is that saving $500 a month on utilities worth having people who are in a five-mile radius around that station, their insurance rates either double or they get dropped all together?” he asked.
Then there is the station yet to be built. Just as Speedville was a priority for Riddick, getting a station in Brooker is a priority for Commissioner Diane Andrews now. Brooker is working to get the remaining funds through the state to build it, after which it will be up to the county to staff it, perhaps by splitting another crew as with Speedville and Theressa.
The nearest station to Brooker is Sampson City, which is also getting updated living quarters, because of a legislative allocation Sheriff Gordon Smith had originally obtained to make the Heilbronn Springs station livable. The county then got permission to use that funding, nearly $800,000, to build living quarters at Sampson City and Theressa. The rising cost of construction, however, means that only Sampson City will get the new quarters.
The other active station is in Lawtey, while Heilbronn remains unoccupied, although Riddick did openly question if the crew should be moved. He said he wanted to come to the workshops prepared with maps and call logs to help commissioners make decisions.
Three fire assessments workshops for commissioners and the public have been scheduled:
—Feb. 4 at 10:30 a.m.
—March 18 at 5:30 p.m.
—May 6 at 10:30 a.m.
Each of these dates is on a Tuesday and before the final public hearings, which would take place on May 15 and June 17 if the commission moves forward with the assessment.
