Union County Fire Station

You know, I've heard it said that you can tell a lot about the quality of the community by the quality of its fire department. And if that's true, it sure says a lot about Union County.

We should be really called the last responders because there's nobody else to call after they've called us. So we respond to everything, car wrecks, motor vehicle accidents, fires, and of course search and rescue for the visitors that come here because we have more Appalachian Trail in Union County or borders Union County than any other county in Georgia. It's about 39 miles and so we have a lot of visitors that come to Union County that just hike the trail and sometimes they get a little overzealous or they get a little bit too much winded or injured and so that's where we step in.

Whether it's rescuing hikers who find themselves in over their heads on the AT or dealing with issues caused by winter storms on mountain roads, the Union County Fire Department and emergency services are equipped to handle just about any emergency situation.

But as you can imagine, it's not cheap to outfit a fire department with all they need to keep this community safe. Fire department equipment and apparatus is so expensive. For a firefighter to be going into a structure fire, they've got about $10,000 worth of gear on their person at that time. And a ladder engine like this can cost up to $2 million. So you start adding up the math and you realize that's way too big a burden to put on homeowners.

If we don't have SPLOST funds, we're not going to be able to buy large capital purchases such as fire trucks, ladder trucks, equipment, turnout gear. We cannot operate without it.