Some Lowndes County fire stations are in line to receive renovations, Fire Coordinator Sammy Fondren said this week. At the June 15 meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, the board voted to allow Fondren to advertise the dismantling of a substation in District 3 and the main station in District 2.
“There is a lot of scrap metal and some wood that may be of use to someone in these stations,” Fondren said. “We are hoping to sell the buildings or some of the scrap. The board is letting us advertise this and hopefully we can use the money from this to go toward the new buildings.”
Fondren said there are new stations in both Districts 5 and 3. Although District 3 has a new fire station, Fondren said it is time to replace the Rural Hill substation on Pleasant Hill Road.
“This building is deteriorating,” Fondren said. “It is old and it is in need of being replaced. We want to tear down the old building and replace it with a metal building. This will be a very plain, minimal building. The current substation has been there for 25 years.”
The new main station in District 3 will be the model for the proposed station in District 2.
“District 2 has outgrown their current station,” he said. “They are storing four pieces of equipment in a three-bay building. The District 2 station is located on Jess Lyons Road and it is our most used station in the district.”
With proposals on the table for two new buildings, other stations are requesting new buildings as well. Fondren said Artesia has recently received a grant for a new fire station and Crawford is in the process of applying for a grant as well. The grant application is based on the medium household income in the rural communities.
“We are slowly but surely getting there when it comes to having our fire station replaced,” said District 1 Supervisor and Board President Harry Sanders at the June 15 meeting. “We have three new ones, but we can’t build them all at one time.”
Fondren said he is currently looking at the overall costs for the projects.
“I will come back before the board with some estimates,” he said. “We will be doing the work on this but we need to get some quotes on material.”
There are 19 fire stations, manned by 145 volunteer firemen and spread among five districts, in the county.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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