Hart County Dissolves Fire Board

Hart County has officially dissolved its Fire Board.

At their meeting Tuesday evening, the Hart County Board of Commissioners voted to do away with the Fire Board.

County Administrator Jon Caime said the board was established when the County decided to hire a full-time fire chief.

“Many years ago we moved towards hiring full-time firefighters,” Caime explained. “Then the next step was to hire a full-time chief, which was appointed by the Board of Commissioners, not the volunteer fire departments. When we did that we had to make sure we had some kind of representation for the individual fire departments so they formed this fire board.”

Caime said the job of the Fire Board was to represent each volunteer fire department in the county.

However, he said Fire Board is no longer needed and members of the Fire Board itself has recommended it be dissolved.

Caime said the County fire departments are moving towards a new system of representation.

“It doesn’t mean that the volunteer fire departments are not going to be represented, but they’re going to be represented by a fire commander. Each station will elect their own fire commander and then those fire commanders will all meet at different fire stations throughout the county during the year. It’s just the next progression in the growth of our fire system,” Caime said.

Hart County now has eight volunteer fire stations, including one station staffed with a full-time County Fire Chief and full-time county fire fighters.