Warren County Fire introduces new plan set to help volunteer firefighters
WARREN COUNTY, Ky. – The Warren County Fire Departments are set to put a new plan in motion that will help bring new volunteer firefighters to the departments.
This will provide additional firefighters during the daytime hours when most of the normal staff is at work.
“Through the efforts of fiscal court, we got funding allotted for starting July 1, and it is our intention to start staffing two stations Aug. 4. That’ll be Richardsville and Alvaton based on call volume and population density, and then we’re going to expand in September to covering Browning and Smiths Grove, and then in October, we intend to have representatives in every jurisdiction of the county. Our optimal staffing will be 24 people Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and that is being done to strategically cover the most challenging times for the volunteers, which is during daytime hours when a lot of them are working, and then nights and weekends will continue to be 100% volunteer,” Warren County fire coordinator Bill Rector says.
They’ve seen a lot of applicants for the positions, which is a great sign for the future of the departments.
“We’ve had over 100 applicants, and we are hiring the most qualified, most competent individuals, and we’re down to about 75 where we intend to have between 50 and 75 people on the roster, and we’re gonna be able to fill the schedule based on their availability,” Rector says.
The main goal is to make sure they’re able to respond as quickly as possible and help the community all hours of the day.
“The most important thing would be a timely response and ensuring that we’re getting adequate numbers to the incident. A prime example, personnel operating on a critical incident right now in the county and making sure that we have the NFPA obligation met while also meeting the expectations of the citizens. That’s sort of what’s steering a lot of this, the days of maybe having just a couple folks showing up. The citizens expect more, and we’re going to ensure that we are doing that,” Rector says.
