City Manager Samantha Abell told Council members she and Fire Chief Shane Carmichael, who is also the Community Services Director, have been working on the issue of whether the department should retain its current status, should join forces with other fire departments in South Santa Rosa County, should become a totally professional department or should opt for some combination of the possibilities.
Abell said those efforts involved putting together statistics on response times with other fire departments – an effort which showed that calls to the local department increased about 42 percent over the last 15 years, with most of the increase accounted for by medical calls.