The Brown County Volunteer Fire Department has run without the use of paid staff since 1954. But the department has seen a large loss of volunteers in the past year that has put them in a bind.
"We only have at the most right now two people available during the day, and that's on a good day," says Brown County volunteer firefighter Micah Fox.
Fox says the volunteers have other obligations that prevent them from working for the department during weekdays.
"Our volunteers work a full-time job, and then they also have to care for all of the other fire department related stuff," Fox says. "All the trainings, the meetings, the maintenance on the trucks we have to do, we still have to take care of all of that. When we don't have volunteers available during the day, because they are at work, then that falls back onto the other fire departments in the county, and they are in the same position we are."
Due to the lack of volunteers, the department has been forced to cut services to continue operating. Beginning April 1, the department will be ending its medical first responder service used to assist the ambulance crews. Columbus Regional Hospital, which has two ambulances stationed in Nashville, will handle medical first response calls.
"With us being right across town from the ambulance service 99.9 percent of the time, the ambulance is on scene before we are," says Fox. "Just over half of our runs last year were medical runs, and a third of them, we were disregarded before any of our people got on scene. And that takes fuel, that takes time out of our volunteers day to get halfway to the scene and get disregarded. So it was a difficult decision for us to make, but it was the only option that we saw."
Fox was part of a four person committee that met earlier this week to try and solve issues related to a lack of volunteers. The committee determined the best way to deal with the issue is the creation of a fire territory, creating full-time paid positions for firefighters.
The cost to residents is estimated at six cents for every $100 dollars of their property's valuation. Previous efforts to fund the department with tax increases have failed.
"[The creation of a fire territory] is the only feasible option of keeping this department open," Fox says. "If this department closes, then the community is going to have to rely on coverage from other fire departments in the county that are having the same problems we are having during the day."
The Brown County Volunteer Fire Department serves Nashville and Washington Township.
