Thanks to property owners in the northeast Benton County area who approved an increase in fire dues, two firefighters will be on staff in the Northeast Benton County Fire-EMS Department station from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. There will also be firefighters paid to be on call for the night shift.
"Our response is going to be extremely faster now," NEBCO Fire Chief Rob Taylor said. "Prior to that, the ambulance would respond in the ambulance but the volunteers had to come from wherever they were." There are 24 volunteers on the roster for NEBCO but most of them have 40-hour a week jobs and are not always available.
"You can't really depend on knowing when they're around. That's just part of volunteerism," Taylor said. "We're continuing to get busier and busier and getting more requests for service for the fire department."
"It's getting harder and harder to make those calls. When someone calls 911, they want service and they want it quickly," he said.