Aug. 14—The Canton Fire Department has finally settled on a new flood-proof home, but the Haywood Rescue Squad will lose its storage building on the east side of the county to make room.

In May, the Rescue Squad received a notice to vacate the property — which is owned by the town, but has been used by the rescue squad for decades. The town needed a new location for its flooded-out fire department, and the Rescue Squad's building fit the bill.

"We are excited to finally give our firefighters a permanent home away from the risk of flooding, which in turn will provide better public safety for our citizens," said Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers. "Obviously, it was a difficult decision because the Rescue Squad was located there. However, we have and will continue to cooperate with them to see what we can do to provide them storage and any assistance."

The town said the move was necessary to give the fire department a new home with as little cost to taxpayers as possible.

But Rescue Squad Chief Jared Pless said he's frustrated with how the move played out.

"I'm not going to deny the Fire Department any station — they've needed one for years," Pless told The Mountaineer. "My issue was not the fact that they needed a place to put a fire station. It was the fact that they just basically said, 'Hey, we know you've been here since 1965. Get out.'"

The Rescue Squad hasn't provided regular emergency services to Canton or the county in years, however. It doesn't respond to 911 calls, but instead operates scheduled ambulance transports for hire.

The notice gave the Rescue Squad two months to move out. But after a conversation with town staff, a two-week extension was added to the timeline.

Gone but not forgotten

The squad's last day in the building was July 31. On Aug. 1, a post on the Rescue Squad's Facebook page laid out Pless's side of the story.

Pless said the facility — located at 2 School Street, near the corner of Bridge Street and Champion Drive — served a critical role in Helene. It has also helped the squad reach the eastern parts of Haywood more easily.

But the Rescue Squad is headquartered in Waynesville, and was only using the Canton building to park vehicles and store equipment.

"I had an office secretary that worked out of that station, but it was for storage of equipment because a lot of our volunteers are on the Canton side of the town or of the county, and it's a lot harder to redeploy assets from Waynesville," Pless said.

Town leaders said the Rescue Squad building was the most fiscally responsible choice for a new fire station, and they still want to support the Rescue Squad.

In July, the Canton aldermen gave the Rescue Squad permission to park one of its trucks at the town's temporary facilities. Pless said he's now looking for funding options to open a new station to replace the lost storage space.

The town has also promised not to forget the Rescue Squad and its contributions to the town when the Fire Department moves into the building.

The Rescue Squad's original sign will be displayed in the new Fire Department once it's complete, as a tribute to the building's original purpose.

"The Rescue Squad has served a very important and historic value to the town of Canton, especially its founding members," Smathers said. "The board and myself have already made it clear that in the new building, the history and sacrifices of the ones that came before will be honored."

Who owns the building?

The Rescue Squad occupied the building from the time it was built in 1965. Rescue Squad Chief Jared Pless said he thinks the facility was actually built by Rescue Squad members, but there's no proof of that in the deed listing.

The town, however, owns the land. The Rescue Squad used the building for decades under a lease agreement with Canton — but the Rescue Squad did not pay anything to the town under that lease.

Now neither party can find a copy of the original lease, so the town has the legal right to take back the property.

"The Rescue Squad has occupied the building without paying rent for approximately 60 years," said Canton Town Manager Lisa Stinnett in an email. "While the original lease document could not be located by either party, town records indicate the lease expired in 2010, and no lease payments have been made during that time."

Pless found records of the lease being discussed at a 2011 town meeting, but no decision was made at that meeting.

"I don't have anything where the motion was carried. I know there was a discussion that was brought up," Pless said of the 2011 meeting.

Without a lease, there's not much the Rescue Squad can do to push back on the town's decision.

"We're not in a financial position to hire an attorney and try to fight the town government because our priority is not to fight and argue and go through court battles with municipal governments. Our priority is to help people," Pless said.

Picking the location

Stinnett said the decision was not intended to harm the Rescue Squad. Rather, it was made out of necessity.

Since Fred, the town has been on the hunt for a flood-proof place to house its fire department. In February of this year, the town received $5.8 million in federal funds to rebuild the fire station — so it had to act fast to use that money.

"After exploring multiple alternatives, this location proved to be the most practical and financially responsible solution," Stinnett said of the Rescue Squad building.

Stinnett said the town considered buying a new piece of property, but the purchase price would have eaten up a large chunk of the federal funds. The Rescue Squad building is already owned by the town, and it's close to downtown and the former Fire Department building.

"Other viable options would have required purchasing property and constructing an entirely new station at a cost of several million dollars," Stinnett said. "Given the Town's significant revenue losses and disaster recovery obligations, those options were simply not financially feasible."

The former Fire Department building behind the old Town Hall has been flooded at least three times in the last 25 years. Since Helene, the Fire Department has operated out of a temporary trailer facility on Summer Street — a tough location behind an active railroad line and a tight space.

The town looked at many options, but the Rescue Squad building checked the most boxes.

"We were not going to get this spot unless we knew it can work," said Smathers. "And it can work, and it can work well."

Plus, the clock was ticking — both on the federal funding and for the Fire Department to have a viable home base.

"We had to move quickly. Our firefighters need a permanent home. I mean, these trailers we've been in, they are not built for the long term, and so there was an urgency," said Smathers.

But the Rescue Squad thinks the town moved too quickly. Pless said he didn't know anything about the town's decision until he got the notice to vacate in the mail.

He spoke with town staff about the situation after he got the letter, but Pless said he was not notified or consulted before the town decided to take over the building.

"The frustration is everything's kind of been an afterthought," Pless said.

But he understands the Fire Department's needs, and said he maintains a strong relationship with the Canton firefighters.

"We don't hold any ill feelings towards the fire department. And I don't really have any ill feelings about the town. It's just how it was handled, there's a little bit of heartache," Pless said.

Rescue Squad's role

Pless said part of the disappointment he feels is because he has tried to support Canton since becoming chief of the Rescue Squad in 2024.

"I can't speak for what happened before I took over, but since I took over, I have bent over backwards to try to emphasize service to the town of Canton and the surrounding areas," Pless said. "That's kind of the majority of the heartache over it was the fact that we worked so hard to try to help them, and then that was what we got for helping them."

However, since the Rescue Squad lost its nonprofit status several years ago, it's been difficult to track how involved the squad is in Canton.

The squad helped with water rescues in town during Helene.

"We were the only water rescue team in the town of Canton during Helene," Pless said. "People lived because we were there, and because we had that equipment staged at that station."

But the town doesn't regularly utilize the Rescue Squad for ambulance services or other emergency responses.

The rescue squad imploded in 2019 amid financial challenges and nearly dissolved. The county absorbed the services it had been providing, but after going dark for a period, it made a return running for-hire ambulance transports, such as transporting patients from nursing homes to medical procedures.

"To my knowledge, the town has not requested the Rescue Squad to provide ambulance coverage for any town event this year, nor for at least the past three or four Labor Day festivals," Stinnett said.

Although the town rarely utilizes the Rescue Squad now, Pless said he has plans to aid the town's Fire Department in the future.

"What we are going to be doing going forward is basically filling the gaps in the fire department's capabilities on specialty incidents," Pless said.

The squad has special rescue equipment that the Canton firefighters don't have, so Pless said he'll lend a hand when the town needs it.

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