Volunteers needed in County fire departments, E911 building moves forward
Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, June 7, 2023
- Photo by Donna Campbell/Volunteer firefighters from three departments responded to a mock fire drill at Enterprise Attendance Center in 2017 to gain experience for themselves, EMTs and Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputies as well as school personnel and students. Returning from a successful search mission in one of the buildings on campus are, from left: Ruth VFD Chief Teresa Lawrence, Donnie Stewart with East Lincoln VFD, Shane Carlisle with Hog Chain VFD and Terry Fuller of East Lincoln VFD.
BROOKHAVEN — Chris Reid, Director of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency, spoke before the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors in a meeting Monday. He said they are making progress on the E911 building and gave a report on the audit of Lincoln County’s Volunteer Fire Department.
Reid said audits on the Lincoln County Volunteer Fire Departments were completed last week. Everything was in order, he said. Lincoln County is served by Hog Chain, Ruth, Heucks Retreat, Bogue Chitto, Zetus, Loyd Star, New Sight and East Lincoln Volunteer Fire Departments. A concern of his moving forward is the need for more volunteers at those fire departments.
“I think we have had this discussion before but volunteerism is down,” Reid said. “Our state legislature did approve a state board to implement a retirement plan for volunteer firefighters. Active members who meet the criteria would get a certain amount of money in retirement but we don’t know the specifics until the board gets in place. I hope that it helps here. Used to, you would have a whole pile of volunteers show up during the day but everyone has to work now. It is hard in this economy.”
District three Supervisor Nolan Williamson said he remembered jumping off of his dozer in response to a house fire while he was on a volunteer fire department. He had to return a few hours later and cut off the dozer because he had left it running.
E911 building update
Reid informed the board that the E911 building was getting paint and new baseboards this week. They have already painted the walls and are working on putting up new ceiling tiles in the building.
“We are working on making it a nice facility and moving forward,” Reid said.
New hires for the department will not happen until the interlocal agreement goes through. Mississippi’s Attorney General has made a few minor changes to the interlocal agreement in the past few months