General Category > General Discussion
City of Lavon Fire Department
FDtoLavon:
Imagine the possibility of Lavon having a self sustaining fire department. A fire department dedicated to the city and not dependent on an outside Vol. FD. Not all of you know this but the Lavon Fire Department is actually operated by Nevada VFD. Nevada VFD has a hard time staffing this station so responses usually come from their Nevada location. It sure would be nice to get a response from a station that is 100 yds away from my house than their other location which is 5 miles away. The ambulance on the complete opposite side of Wylie will beat the FD in some occasions. This is unacceptable to me. What is the point of a first responder if they are not the first responder. In a real emergency those first few minutes can mean the difference between life and death.
I know this sounds harsh but I am not bashing Nevada FD. They have a lot of good guys. They simply lack the VOLUNTEERS to effectively run out of this station. I know Nevada VFD is trying to get volunteers, I have seen the flyers. So what is the solution here? Is it our fault as a community for not stepping up to help Nevada VFD and our fellow citizens in their time of need? Maybe the city could look into taking over FD and staffing it part time? This option would bring in trained firefighters from full time paid departments looking for part time work. Do we pay to have Wylie FD for contracted fire service? Their closest station is also 5 miles away and is staffed 24hrs a day.
There are a lot of different possible solutions to this issue. Would our taxes go up if we had payed guys or contracted fire service? Sure they would. I personally would rather pay the extra money to have someone there as fast as possible in an emergency. I know this issue is probably not a big deal to most of you now, but when your house catches on fire or your son, daughter, mother, or father need life saving measures immediately. I promise, it will matter to you more than anything.
The Admin:
I'm not sure how the contract is today, if any, but in the past, the Wylie fire department did help out in Lavon, and frequently beat the Lavon/Nevada fire department to the scene. Again, that is in the past, things may have changed since then.
FDtoLavon:
I don't believe there is a contract but I could be wrong. I have seen Wylie FD beat Nevada VFD some of the time. This should not even be close. We have a firestation in our own back yard. Why is Wylie the first to respond? Don't get me wrong, I love to see them in our neck of the woods. They are an ISO 1 rated fire department which is the highest you can get. It sure would be nice if Wylie could build a station off of 205 somewhere. With there ISO 1 rating, our insurance rates would go way down. Plus, businesses are attracted to cities with that kind of rating. Keeps their insurance down as well. But, that is just a dream.
FDtoLavon:
I again saw Wylie beat Nevada again today. The ambulance beat the first responders by almost 10 minutes. I sure am glad we have that station here for those blazing response times.
The Admin:
That's one of the gotchas with volunteer fire departments. You have that extra overhead of the crew having to drive to the fire department first. While no one will argue that having a locally staffed 24x7 fire department would be nice, realistically, I think it will be many years before Lavon can afford it, unless they somehow get funding from another source. Lavon will need some fairly good size businesses to pull in the tax money to be able to afford a full time fire department. In the past, there was some gossip about a few companies that were looking at building in Lavon, but they were nothing but gossip at the time. I guess this is the price you pay when moving into a small community.
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