LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – Lake County Fire Rescue is expanding its workforce thanks to a $7.5 million federal grant from Homeland Security that will fund 36 new firefighter positions over the next three years.
The SAFER grant will allow the department to add a third firefighter to 10 fire trucks across all three shifts and provide six additional firefighters for backfill positions.
For the first two years of the grant, Lake County will have a 25% match, and in year three, the match is bumped up to 65%.
“The main thing is the personnel not being burnt out, having to work all these mandatory overtimes, which is wonderful. But then again, it’s not. You get burnt out. You get tired,” says Laura Sokolowski.
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Sokolowski emphasizes that the additional staffing will enhance community protection.
“If you have more people available to respond to a call, the better off it is. It’s not like TV, where you have these whole teams of like five or six people. Usually, a team is, you know, two or three people,” Sokolowski said.
Georgette Ayers, who lives down the street from a Lake County Fire Rescue station, welcomes the expansion.
“Oh, it’s definitely a positive thing for our community. Everybody, these firefighters, especially in this area, we’re short, short of everything. So, it’s definitely going to be a bonus,” Ayers said.
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Public Safety Director David Kilbury said the impact of the additional staffing across three shifts is significant.
“The fire service is extremely labor-intensive,” Kilbury said. “Throwing ladders, pulling fire hose, doing CPR, cutting victims out of car crashes. It takes a highly trained human firefighter to do that. So, this is a significant increase.”
Kilbury also points out that the staffing increase could benefit residents financially through potentially lower homeowner’s insurance rates.
“There’s an organization, the Insurance Services Organization and they are kind of the analytical arm of the insurance industry,” Kilbury said. “They don’t set the rates, they get that information on a local fire department to the insurance companies to set the rates so that fire loss risk is real in policy threats. And so that is very important that we keep the standards of ISO, of how they evaluate a fire department and personnel is a huge part of that and the resources that we bring to a firefight.”
Kilbury said without the additional funding, they would not be hiring an additional 36 firefighters in the next three years.
For more information on Lake County Fire Rescue and to see open positions, click here.