Washington County's Fire and Rescue is struggling to maintain volunteers and is seeking to request support from the safer grant program.
Several key representatives from the surrounding fire departments gathered at the Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning to request additional funds and support for the SAFER Grant.
The grant provides funds for fire departments and volunteer firefighters to help increase the number of trained-front line firefighters available to their communities.
"You can see the patches on my sleeve, I don't care,” Director of Emergency Services, David Hayes said. "I simply don't care. We're all one team. The success of the team is not on any one individual not the Department of Emergency Services, not the volunteers, so we have to work together to bring emergency services back up to a sustainable capacity."