News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
DeKalb County Commission has allocated some $350,000 in ARP money for a new Liberty/Dowelltown fire hall.
County Fire Chief Donny Green said that the idea originally came about because of a need for more space at the Liberty Fire Hall. He said that the project has since grown to include space for a fire truck, a tankard, and a space for an EMS hub.
“We just looked at all the benefits of having the increased fire protection, the water supply, and also the availability of the ambulance in that area of the county at least on some kind of schedule,” Green said. “So that’s how we got to where we were at.”
Green said that Dowelltown and Liberty have a shared 8.5-acre piece of property that they are leasing to the county for $1. He said that with a broader spectrum of safety available for the county, the new fire hall is a win-win for everyone.
Green said that now that the county commission has allocated the money, the plan is to enter the design phase. He said that the reason they chose the Liberty/Dowelltown fire hall project over other projects on the department’s radar, such as a fire hall in the Wolf Creek Community.
“The reason we picked this station to go ahead is first is we had the land available,” Green said. “We’ve got a land access issue over there where the Corps of Engineers owns most of the property in the area that we’re looking to build that would be most beneficial to strategically locate that station. So while we’ve set aside seed money for the last three years, we just don’t have a suitable site to build that location yet.”
Green said that he wanted folks to be aware that the project is still in the works, but that the land and the funding came about in such a way that they needed to jump on this opportunity.
“We have the land that was practically donated to us, it provides a wider array of services by putting a tankard that helps with a water supply and also providing an opportunity for emergency medical services in that end of the county.”
