Emergency calls average about one a day at the Providence Volunteer Fire Department in Weddington.
And the decision to hire part-time paid firefighters to cover two daytime shifts Monday through Friday has chief Steve Carow breathing a little easier these days.
"You don't know what a big relief it is for me...knowing there's people here during the day," says Carow, a 22-year volunteer at the station.
Department officials hired paid personnel in March to help cover calls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, when many of the station's 35 volunteers are working outside the community and can't respond quickly.
The facility, on Hemby Road near Matthews-Weddington Road, covers most of Weddington and the southern end of Mecklenburg County and answers about 35 calls per month.
Carow said the change was necessary because all too often, volunteers were showing up at fires with too few people to help and not enough equipment.
Rob Kinniburgh, a volunteer since 1978 and a full-time Charlotte firefighter, agreed. He said many of the younger firefighters can get to emergencies quickly, but are not trained to drive a fire truck. With paid firefighters, there's now always someone who can get equipment to a site.
Kinniburgh said the change has also helped the department better maintain the station and its six-truck fleet, become more citizen-friendly and visible than before, and offer more training to its volunteer force.
Providence is one of three volunteer departments in the county that has added paid daytime staff. The Stallings and Hemby Bridge stations each have four firefighters working Monday through Friday to supplement their volunteer force.
The county has 18 volunteer departments. Monroe has the only department with paid full-time firefighters.
Carow said the Providence station uses a pool of 16 firefighters to fill the shifts. Roughly half are already volunteers at the department; the others are full-time firefighters in Monroe or Charlotte.
He said the department was in good fiscal shape to create the paid positions, having built a healthy savings account over the years. Plus it helped that the station doesn't expect to purchase a new fire truck within the next 10 years, Kinniburgh said.
"We're in a financial position to do (this) for ...two to three years," Carow said. He hopes that, beyond that, the town of Weddington, which donates money to Providence as well as the Stallings department, will help fund the paid staff.
According to the Weddington finance officer, the town has given an average of about $18,700 to the department each of the last four fiscal years (2002 and 2003 included money for a new fire truck). It has set aside $23,242 for Providence in the proposed 2005 budget, partly to offset costs of the paid firefighters.
The station receives the bulk of its money from fire fees and monthly subsidies from Union and Mecklenburg counties and maintains a yearly budget of about $150,000. That number doesn't include the new salaries and related costs, estimated at $70,000 to $80,000 annually.
Company Will Mark 50th Anniversary
The Providence Volunteer Fire Department in Weddington will celebrate its 50th anniversary this fall. The station was originally in Mecklenburg County at Providence and McKee roads and moved to its Hemby Road location in the early 1980s.
