Houston County Fire Department gives information, hears community input in town hall meeting 

PERRY — The Houston County Fire Department hosted a town hall meeting that discussed the progress made by the department, the ways the department can improve and also heard input from the community. 

“We’ve improved the fire department radically over the last 20 years. In the last five to ten years, we’ve made some real big swings at the transition between primarily a volunteer led fire department into a professional staffed fire department,” Chairman Dan Perdue said. “We’re proud of those strides that we’ve made, but we also have a lot further to go if we want to be a fully staffed, fully operational, full-time fire service at all of the following county stations.” 

Houston County Fire Chief Chris Stoner gave a presentation that gave the public much-needed information about the county fire department. There are currently eight Houston County fire stations, and Stoner said if you have not been to or seen your nearest fire station, contact them, and they will give you a tour. 

Dating back to 2004, the HCFD ran over 1,900 calls, according to Stoner. In 2024, the HCFD received over 5,000 calls. By district, Station 2 in Bonaire received the most calls in its primary response area. Stoner said the number of calls does not include calls from neighboring areas. 

“When we have a house fire, fire alarm or even a traffic accident, it takes multiple stations to cover those responses. We send two or three stations depending on what the call is or send more [stations] if needed,” he said. 

Station 5 on Lake Joy and Station 1 on Carl Vinson ran over 1,000 calls in their primary areas. 

Stoner said the fire department also conducts recruit classes yearly to bring on volunteers. The class is over 500 hours, two to three nights a week. The full-time and part-time staff must turn in at least 240 hours of training annually. 

Stoner emphasized that the HCFD does not just respond to fires, wrecks and EMS calls. He said they are a large part of the community. 

“We have tons of community engagement events from doing fire safety education at schools, doing presentations for Emergency Management and touching hydrants. We have to touch every hydrant in the county once a year, and it’s a little over 3,000 hydrants, in addition to running all of those calls,” he said. “We have to go to every commercial business in the county once a year and update contact information and emergency procedures for the facility, so we know what’s going on and that we can plan ahead of time.” 

The HCFD also runs special operations. Stoner said they have an honor guard and a dive and water rescue team. The fire department is also a host agency to the Georgia Search and Rescue, making them responsible for maintaining that equipment and deploying the apparatus wherever it needs to go. 

Regarding the progression of the HCFD, Stoner shared that in 1997, the department was all volunteer firefighters until they hired eight full-time firefighters. In 2001, the department added three more. 

“From 2001-2016, we stayed at 11 personnel, again supplemented with volunteers, but 11 primary firefighters between eight stations,” he said. “In 2016, we added six full-time firefighters and that enabled us to take our very first station 24/7. In 2020, we added four more slots for full-time firefighters, and that took two stations seven days a week.” 

In 2023, HCFD added nine additional full-time slots making five stations on the clock 24/7. 

“The caveat is, of those five stations, only two of them have more than one person there,” he said. “That’s enough to get the truck en route and get the truck to the scene, but not enough to do everything that needs to be done at that scene.” 

The HCFD has added a training chief and an inspections captain this past year. 

Capital improvements for the department over the years include rebuilding Station 6 in 2016, purchasing the first ladder truck in the county in 2018,  a new headquarters and the building of Station 5 in 2020 and rebuilding Station 2 in 2023. 

“That low hanging fruit is gone, so we’ve got to look at ways to move forward and continue that progression pattern,” he said. 

Back in 1997, the HCFD’s ISO rating stood at 6. The fire department was audited in 2016, and its ISO rating had improved to a 4. 

“We were just audited again last year in November 2024, and we were able to decrease to a 3,” he said. “Generally the 1 through 3 category is the top tier of fire departments of the nation. Having that Class 3 or better puts us in the top 15% nationwide.” 

This rating was achieved with only one to two people at each station. 

“Imagine the workload that is on the staff to accomplish something like that as ther are working themselves into the ground performing this to make sure we keep this ISO rating low,” he said. “My hats goes off to them everyday.” 

Stoner delved deeper into the ISO rating and said the fire department fared well in the community risk reduction, water points and emergency communication center points. Stoner said the fire department lacked ladder and reserve ladder service and the deployment and personnel numbers, which can be corrected by hiring additional staff.   

“I feel pretty comfortable saying we have accomplished a pretty significant feat for a department of our size,” he said. 

The current millage rate for the fire department is 1.177 mills. Stoner said this millage rate has been constant for about 15 years and has even been higher in the past. All revenue from the millage rate goes to the fire department. 

Recently, the HCFD has not had as many volunteers as before. Stoner said they have seen a little increase, but not enough. 

“I don’t see us ever fully doing away with volunteers because they are a great resource and a great way to give back to their community, but we can’t rely on them as heavily as we once did to supplement that response,” he said. “We’ve got to do something on our side to help strengthen those numbers.” 

One citizen asked how many fire trucks the HCFD wanted fully staffed at any given time. Stoner replied with eight, one for each station, but said a few stations have more than one apparatus. 

“Down the road at some point, [we would love to have] two people on each [apparatus], but I don’t think we’re at that point. We need to get our staffing established at each of these [stations],” he said. 

Another citizen had a concern about Station 3 not running after regular hours. The citizen mentioned he had witnessed a wreck off of 341 at 2200 hours and had to help the driver out of the vehicle. He said it took the closest fire station 20 minutes to get to the scene. 

One citizen also had a question about who responds to which call. He asked who would receive the call if a fire happened at Mossy Creek Middle School. Stoner said that the call would go to the City of Perry. 

“I’ve got a gentlemen’s agreement with [City of Perry Fire] Chief Parker and a signed agreement with Centerville. It says if we’re closer, we’re responding. In turn, that is reciprocated.” 

A second town hall meeting hosted by the HCFD will be held on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 p.m. at the Houston County Annex.