July 2, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County has fire stations in 12 communities. The latest one opened last summer in the Four Seasons area.
Residents of Wolf Creek are now asking that the county establish a fire hall in their community. Several people showed up Tuesday night at a meeting of the county’s emergency services committee to make the request. The closest firehalls currently are Silver Point (Putnam County) and Temperance Hall.
Among the concerned citizens from the community attending the meeting were star NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip, who has a home in the area. First district county commissioner Julie Young, who represents that community, is a member of the emergency services committee.
In response to the concerns, the county budget committee, which met Wednesday night, voted to set aside $25,000 in seed money from the capital projects fund in the 2020-21 budget, subject to final approval by the county commission, toward future development of a fire hall at Wolf Creek. Fifth district commissioner Anita Puckett made the suggestion and the motion for the funding. The idea is to designate some money for the project now and add to it each year until enough is available to build the fire hall. A similar plan was followed several years ago when the county began planning for the Four Seasons Fire Station, a project (building) which eventually cost the county more than $160,000.
Currently, the county has no funds in place to build a new fire hall and the property where it would be located has not been secured. The county would also have to come up with another fire truck and the volunteers to staff it.
In the meantime, the county budget committee has included $12,000 in the new budget from the capital projects fund to install two fire hydrants in the Wolf Creek community. The committee took that action Wednesday night upon the recommendation of County Mayor Tim Stribling who said he had received requests from others for the hydrants.
The county’s 12 fire halls operated by the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department are located on Short Mountain Highway, Midway Community, Belk, Keltonburg, Cookeville Highway, Austin Bottom Community, Liberty, Temperance Hall, Main Station, Johnson Chapel, Four Seasons, and Blue Springs.