With the state set to purchase the Coffee County I-24 megasite, the county is starting to plan for a full-time county fire department.

“There’s going to be twice as many people moving here, twice as fast as any of us saw with normal Census figures. I think you’re probably going to have to start seriously talking about a full-time fire department so that we can plan it according to our needs,” Matheny said during the Feb. 22 meeting of Heath, Welfare and Recreation.

“I want to be as indigenous as possible with it,” he said.

The mayor set a rough timeline of two-five years for getting the station operational. The purpose of the discussion was to stress the preplanning of a department.

“The ones who brought us to the dance gets first shot at it,” Matheny said. 

Hillsboro Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Brandon Gunn said that the station’s ISO insurance rating would be important. ISO ratings have an impact on insurance rates in a community. Rural fire departments have higher ISO ratings than their fulltime, fully staffed city counterparts.   

“As far as ISO, you got, I would guess probably five years before you could go to be graded, so you’re going to have to start this department five years before you need that grade,” Gunn speculated.

Gunn told the committee that there is only so much that the fire department can do to lower the ISO rating. The availability of water flow weighs in too.

“When you have two-inch lines with a fire hydrant on it, and you have to fight with a water company six years to replace a hydrant, my guys can do all the training in the world, make every call, and until we have the water system, that’s 40 points of our grade,” Gunn said.

“We will never be any better until we have (infrastructure improvements),” he said.

Matheny said that the state will likely foot the bill for those waterline improvements.