Warren County Fire Department celebrates first year of service to the community

WARREN COUNTY, Ky. – The Warren County Fire Department is officially one year old, and it is making big changes to better protect our community.

The Warren County Fire Department hired nine new personnel to its staff. This includes four firefighters, four captains and a battalion chief, all of whom are the first group of Warren County firefighters that will serve full time, working four days a week on 10-hour shifts.

These new firefighters will spend the next few months around a couple of different departments in the community to familiarize themselves with the surrounding area.

“So the first couple of months, we’re going to rotate them throughout the entire county. We’re currently primarily staffing four locations, and that is Richardsville, Alvaton, Browning and Smiths Grove, and they will rotate through those locations just to get familiar with everything and everyone. The really awesome thing is that all of them, with the exception of one, are directly tied to Warren County. They have volunteer background in Warren County,” said Warren County fire coordinator Bill Rector.

While these new additions will definitely benefit the department and the community, volunteer firefighters will still be supported.

“From the fiscal course perspective, passed down to me is we are going to do everything we can to bolster those numbers, right, it’s only logical because they carry a large portion of the burden. So it’s our responsibility to help them out,” Rector said.

But 2025 was a busy year, originally starting as a recommendation from a consulting report. The Warren County Fire Department hit the ground running to provide service to the Warren County community.

“So ’25 was pure chaos, but in a lot of good ways, right. Establishing the relations with all departments by an apparatus. We bought three new tankers. We purchased six new vehicles. So lots of good things are happening. We have a roster of about 80 part-time employees, and they’re working today,” Rector said.

This year will see some changes, though, slowing down and focusing more on building from the base that it has now created.

” ’26 and on is intended to be the marathon and we are working to really slow down and bolster what we currently have, but make sure that we’re doing everything we need to do on our end to meet the demand of the citizens,” Rector said.

While there are no plans to add more full-time personnel right now, they are always looking to add more volunteers to all their departments.