Doyle Fire Department Selling Driveway Markers To Help Response Time

The Doyle Fire Department is selling driveway markers to cut down on emergency response time in rural parts of White County.

Fire Chief Jason Sparks said valuable seconds tick away when responders have to search for an address that is not clearly marked. He said while GPS  is sometimes accurate, it can take years before new addresses in rural counties are added to online GPS services.

“It’s very difficult sometimes to figure out which home we should be at or which address we should be at,” Sparks said. “So, it helps the community. We make a very small amount of money on them, so we don’t make much on them. It’s mostly to help our community.”

He said 98 percent of the area that the department serves is rural, and many homes are far from the main roads. He said traveling down a long driveway only to find the wrong home is a waste of time people in emergencies cannot afford. He said people can fill out a form on the Doyle Fire Department Facebook page to buy a $30 marker.

“We have stick-on reflective numbering that goes on those posts,” Sparks said. “We put those numbers on both sides of the post. So, when we install them, we try to install them in such a way that they can be seen coming from either direction on the travel road coming to get there.”

Sparks said low-visibility situations only make the markers a more valuable tool. He said the reflective numbering is visible to responders even in wooded areas late at night. He said the markers have grown in popularity since the department began advertising them on Facebook with some 25 being sold over the past two weeks.

“We did it mostly as a service to the community,” Sparks said. “To help us help them, basically.”