Athens-Clarke County commissioners revisited the construction of a controversial fire station on the county’s east side on Tuesday. Martin Matheny has more.
A number of east side residents criticized a list of possible locations – mostly in the Old Lexington and Morton Road area - for Fire Station 5 at a commission meeting last November, citing concerns about traffic, noise, and quality of life.
Those concerns prompted commissioners to send the process back to the drawing board.
At a work session on Tuesday, county staff came back with a revamped list of site selection criteria, but they held firm on their contention that a site near the intersection of Old Lexington and Morton Roads is the best option.
ACC Fire Chief Nate Moss said that that location would help fill existing gaps in the fire department’s response times, and that other suggested sites would cause coverage gaps in some areas while duplicating service in others. It would also help the county maintain its top rating from the Insurance Services Office, an independent organization that rates fire departments.
“We know that we can put water on a fire,” Moss told commissioners. “But one thing that we can change to make improvements on - because we're barely clinging to that ISO 1 rating - is the response times based on our station locations.”
Those response times are informed by standards created by the National Fire Protection Association, a non-profit group. In Athens-Clarke County, Fire and Emergency Services officials have set a benchmark of five minutes and twenty seconds to respond to fire calls and five minutes for EMS calls. They say their goal is to have a fire station within 2.5 miles of most Clarke County residents. Locating the fire station in county officials’ preferred location would mean that about 83 percent of the county would be within 2.5 miles of a fire station.
In an effort to assuage the concerns expressed by residents in the area, county officials revised the site selection criteria. Among the changes is a new provision that would make sure a new fire station would be at least 300 feet, and preferably 500 or more feet, from the nearest home.
