Houston County Fire Chief Chris Stoner is defending a delayed response last weekend to a house fire by pointing out that only one station in the county is staffed with paid firefighters on weekends due to lack of funding.
It took the first apparatus about 20 minutes to arrive at a home in Bonaire that suffered heavy fire damage after being struck by lightning during stormy weather in the area Saturday. Chief Stoner said that during weekdays, when staffing is more robust across the county, his crews would have arrived in 12 to 15 minutes.
“Certainly having that station-paid coverage would've expedited that process dramatically, but again, the funding has got to come from somewhere,” the Chief told WMAZ News.
Station 6, which is 12 miles from the home, responded to the call around 5:30 p.m. Volunteers also responded to the scene, but the chief says there is no way to tell how far away from an incident they may be at any given time.
“It would be nice to have extra funding and extra staffing, and we could probably do a lot with that,” Chief Stoner added. “I think that's a decision that the taxpayers in this community would have to make.”
The chief says that at the moment he has about 21 paid staffers and 50 volunteers.
