Fire Chief C.W. Durham presented to council the current 30 contracts covering 36 properties within the county outside of the city limits.
“Out of those, the average is just a little over three miles of response time to get there, the longest contract we hold is six miles from the nearest fire station,” he said.
He reported that in the last few months he’s seen an uptick in requests for contracted fire protection outside of city limits, leading to a review of whether the practice should be allowed to continue. “Currently in codified ordinance, if someone would ask tomorrow for a personal contract outside the city, we would still be obligated to give that to them,” he explained, noting he has no authority to deny as long as the property is located near a fire hydrant.
But the inverse of the service is response time and distance to return home.
“This pulls away from the resources we have,” he said.