Chief Ben Tapley reports that the Bulloch County Fire Department is roughly two-thirds complete in its drive to hire 37 added firefighters in the current fiscal year — which ends June 30 — more than doubling the number of career firefighters in the county fire service, which previously employed 30.

The department has been hosting some training for new-recruit firefighters, and also holding two-week "lateral classes" for already certified firefighters hired laterally from other departments. The pay raises county commissioners approved for the fire service have helped, Tapley said last week.

"With all the people that we've hired we've got about nine people in our recruit class, just had a lateral class finish up, got another lateral class going, got another one starting in a week … with five more people," Tapley said May 15. "So we've got almost two-thirds of those 37 hired. We had four interviews this week actually for some more positions, so I might be (making them offers) next week."

That was on the phone Thursday, and Tapley confirmed the count as 24 firefighters of the various ranks hired so far. He has also hired the three fire captains for the newly created stations. Two of those were lateral hires from other departments; the other was promoted from within, so he has to hire another person to fill the created vacancy.

But the BCFD hasn't hired any firefighters away from the Statesboro Fire Department, he said. The SFD still has somewhat higher pay, at least at most ranks. He said he was pleased to hear, from Statesboro's city budget discussions, that the city has found a way to fund its department so there will be no layoffs there as a result of the county taking on the five-mile district.

3 'new' stations

Meanwhile, a contractor was hoping to dig footers Monday and pour the concrete slab this week for the steel building that will house the fire engine, ladder truck and other apparatus at what will be BCFD Station 16, off Georgia Highway 67 out past the Fairgrounds. As previously reported, the county commissioners in April approved the $850,000 purchase of a three-acre lot, including a house that will be renovated for use as firefighter lodging, training and offices, plus a $175,965 "emergency" contract for construction of a steel building for fire engine and ambulance bays at the site.

The Highway 67 will become one of three "new" 24-hour, seven-day staffed fire stations as the BCFD takes over service July 1 to the county's former Statesboro Fire Tax District, until now served by the Statesboro Fire Department in a five-mile radius of its stations.

But one of the other new full-time firefighter stations will be within Statesboro, at the recently expanded Bulloch County EMS headquarters on West Grady Street. The third added full-time station, although new in the sense of housing career firefighters, is the previously all-volunteer BCFD station in the Clito community.

The Clito station previously had a small day room and a little kitchen with no stove and a couple of offices and one bathroom, Tapley said. So the county has had its Special Projects Manager Randy Newman directing an effort, employing Bulloch County Correctional Institution inmates, to gut the Clito firehouse and build it out to include bunkrooms and bathrooms. The county government took a similar approach for renovations to the Portal and Register fire stations, which now house Bulloch County Emergency Medical Service ambulances and crews as well.

Tapley was interviewed further, along with EMS Deputy Director Lloyd Shurling, while they were attending the open house at Bulloch County Station 3, also known as the Register Firehouse, Saturday, May 17 during Register's Pecan Festival.

More ambulance sites

After staffing an ambulance at the Register station for 12-hour daytime shifts for about three months last year, the EMS went to 24/7 operations there by December.

"We're hoping it's going to make a big difference," Shurling said. "When we opened one at Portal, you know, within two weeks we had a 91-year-old lady who went into cardiac arrest, and since the (ambulance) and Fire Department could get to her within five minutes, she survived. And that's what we're striving for, that we get more quick responses to all areas of the county."

He notes that the county Fire Department responds along with the EMS on calls, and sometimes arrives first when EMS is out on another call.

"Fire does medical while we're gone, until we can get back and transport them to the hospital," Shurling said. "It's making a big difference, especially with fire and EMS working together."

Next the EMS plans to assign an ambulance to the new Highway 67 station as well, but that one will not require hiring an all-new crew, as Shurling explained. That ambulance will move out of the Grady Street headquarters, where a fire engine crew will be moving in.

"We're going to pull one (ambulance and crew) out of Statesboro, where we've got four in-house," Shurling said. "We'll put it there and it can respond into town or out. But the beauty of it is, when you get outside the bypass, you don't have all the redlights and traffic to fight, so the truck can get out to help people, and the faster it can get back into the city."

Staffing & equipment

Staffing an ambulance requires two paramedics or emergency medical technicians per shift, 24 hours on and 48 off. So there are three shifts, or six total personnel, minimum.

Meanwhile, the BCFD is now assigning three firefighters to a truck each shift, or at least nine to go around the clock. So staffing a 24-hour station with career firefighters and EMS personnel takes at least 15 trained and certified people.

The county commissioners' proposed budget funds plans to add an EMS station in the Stilson community in fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1. So far this does not include placing a full-time fire station there. But if and when the county wants to staff a fire engine in Stilson, that would require another nine firefighters, Tapley notes

Although both are part of the county Public Safety Division, the EMS and Fire Department are funded differently. EMS employees are paid from the county general fund. The BCFD is funded from the now county-only Fire Fund, with its own special millage rate.

Tapley said he didn't know yet whether the BCFD will be funded for any additional firefighters in fiscal year 2026 beyond the 37 hires authorized in the previous amendment for fiscal 2025.

But in addition to authorizing those 37 added firefighters, the county purchased three 2024 E-1 Typhoon fire engines. One has been assigned to the Brooklet station — the county's busiest — as an upgrade there. Another is at the Grady Street EMS headquarters, and the third will go to new Station 16, on Highway 67.

The county also took delivery earlier this year on a refitted 2009 model 100-foot ladder truck, also manufactured by the E-1 company. It is currently at the Register station but to be transferred to Station 16, nearest the geographic center of the county.

"We already bought all the equipment, and we're just installing all the equipment and getting it ready and getting people trained on those, and as soon as the date arrives, June 30, we'll have all the trucks in the stations and we'll have the personnel assigned to so come July 1 we'll be ready to run calls," Tapley said.