News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
All five Van Buren County volunteer fire departments will soon have extended fire protection.
County Mayor Greg Wilson said the state funded nearly $289,000 for new equipment.
“We’re going to be using that for AED’s, so we’ll be able to put one on each truck that responds to a fire,” Wilson said. “We’re also getting some equipment for search and rescue and were going to be updating some older equipment on the trucks to get them up-to-date.”
Wilson said without the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding it would be extremely difficult to provide resources to each department.
“We support them as much as we can. We actually have a fund that 10-cents of our property tax goes into to support them,” Wilson said. “But our penny is worth not hardly $13,000, so when you take that and pay their insurance, It’s just not enough money for them without this grant.”
All five fire departments have benefited from the CDBG funding for the past two-years. Wilson said 2018 funding allowed the county to purchase self-contained breathing apparatus.
