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DILLWYN – The 1700 block of Sawmill Road in Buckingham County is six miles or 9 minutes away from the Farmville Volunteer Fire Department. And yet it’s Dillwyn Volunteer Fire Department, 18 minutes away, that gets sent first if something catches on fire there, because Buckingham departments get called out first to deal with fire coverage in their own county. The reason, said Dr. Brian Bates, is because at least one truck needs to be on the road as soon as possible. 

“We want them closing the gap,” Bates said. “Buckingham Dispatch does not know if Farmville is fighting a fire at Longwood. So if you delay and dispatch (outside departments first) only to find they can’t respond, now you haven’t got anybody closing the gap to get to the scene.” 

Bates serves as chief for the Toga Volunteer Fire Department in Buckingham. He explained to county supervisors on Monday, April 17 that through mutual aid agreements, other departments are asked to assist on a regular basis. But to get trucks moving as fast as possible toward an incident, outside agencies aren’t called first. 

“Our dispatch knows what’s going on in our county,” Bates said. “There’s no way for them to track what’s going on with surrounding (fire departments).” 

This past February, some Buckingham residents asked supervisors to consider a change in the way things are done, when it comes to the departments and fire coverage. Supervisors turned it over to the county’s fire chiefs in March, asking them to come up with a solution.  They were concerned about higher fire insurance, due to the fact many live farther out. The answer, according to the chiefs, is to leave the current system in place. 

Another argument against current fire coverage

In addition to local residents, a change was requested by Prospect Assistant Chief James Redford. In a letter to Buckingham County Administrator Karl Carter, Redford argued that valuable time is lost while following the current fire coverage process. 

Currently, when a fire happens in southern areas of Buckingham County, there are times when the 911 call goes to the Farmville Emergency Communications Center, as that is closer. But because it’s a different county, the ECC first transfers the call to the Buckingham County sheriff’s dispatch center, who immediately dispatches the nearest Buckingham department and Farmville or Prospect (or sometimes both) are requested to give assistance.

However, Redford argues in those situations, it would make more sense if the Farmville ECC could dispatch immediately. As soon as they receive the call, he proposes the ECC should be allowed to identify which department, either Farmville or Prospect, is closer and dispatch them to the scene. The only difference between that and the current situation is now the departments have to wait until Buckingham officially requests help. 

“To prevent further delay in response, I am requesting that permission be granted to Farmville ECC, to allow them to dispatch those respective agencies without having to be specifically requested by Buckingham County,” Redford wrote in his letter. “Thus resulting in quicker fire response into the Lower Francisco Fire District. Of course the Farmville ECC 911 dispatcher will still follow the proper protocol of “transfering the call” to (the) Buckingham sheriff’s dispatch center in these scenarios. Once this permission is granted, Farmville ECC will be dispatching according to the most recent map data that was agreed upon by the responding chiefs.” 

Borderless process won’t work 

Redford’s proposed system wouldn’t work here, Bates said. Another alternative, he added, would be to set up a system like the Metro areas around Richmond or Washington D.C. But that would mean paying people to be there all week, because again, Bates said, you couldn’t just rely on other departments to drop what they’re doing and come.

“Last year, the Farmville fire department ran 1,145 calls,” Bates said. “That’s an average of 3.14 calls a day. There’s a 13% chance that the Farmville Fire Department is on a call in their original jurisdiction on any given day. Prospect also backs Farmville up on a fair percentage of those calls, so they may be equally engaged.” 

Bates again pointed out that a change to a “Borderless” system would mean paying staff, because you have to guarantee someone is there at all times. He said such a system worked in Richmond or Alexandria because those are cities with paid departments. 

“Borderless 911 won’t work in a rural area where you don’t have a fully paid fire staff,” he said. 

How does the current system work? 

In the current system, each address in Buckingham County has been plugged into a Geographic Information System (GIS) with 14 departments. That includes the four in Buckingham and the 10 surrounding counties. For each location, the chiefs developed alarm packages of four departments, determined by GIS in ranked order. That means when a call comes in, the system identifies the location and the closest two Buckingham County fire departments are alerted. Then the closest two departments with a mutual aid agreement are also contacted. 

“As incident command needs more resources, they simply tell dispatch to deploy the next (ones available),” Bates said. 

The chiefs took a poll and by unanimous consensus, they agreed the current system seems to be working well and there’s no need for a change. The complaints by Redford and some residents earlier this year were the first since the system was put in place back in 2018.