STARKVILLE — At first glance, Fire Station 5 on West Garrard Road appears to have everything it needs.
Built in 2010, it’s the newest of the city’s five fire stations. It’s fully equipped with a truck and gear. A trailer and ambulance both sit outside the rear of the building.
But for all the things the station has, something very obvious is missing. There’s been no staff to operate it for more than a year.
That greatly concerns Darnell Johnson, who lives on Babylon Road about a mile away from the station. The next nearest station, Fire Station 2 at George M. Bryan Airport, is roughly 5 miles away.
“It was put there to protect the area,” said Johnson, who retired in 2002 after 28 years with Starkville Fire Department. “… Why waste that kind of money putting a station up if you can’t manage it to serve the community? That just don’t make much sense.
“We pay taxes,” he added. “We want the coverage.”
Fire Station 5 closed in 2022 when the department couldn’t hire the nine firefighters needed to staff it. City officials point to low pay as a contributor.
As a cost-savings measure to mitigate a budget deficit, the board of aldermen froze hiring for those positions for this fiscal year, which began in October. Although the city is considering an ad valorem tax increase next fiscal year that would fund more than $1 million in raises for city employees – several in the fire department – the board is planning to again freeze those nine positions, meaning Fire Station 5 would remain shuttered through at least September 2024.
Funding those positions, including benefits, would cost the city roughly $500,000 annually.
Consequently, a fire department with high employee turnover is being asked to cover more ground with one less station, and the city could be in jeopardy of a downgrade to its fire rating from the state, which could impact home and business insurance premiums.
Fire Chief Charles Yarbrough wants to “start planning now” to bring the station back online by October of next year, if not before. As the city grows, both in area and population, he said managing with a short staff will become less tenable.
“We could become very limited, very quickly,” Yarbrough said. “… I’ve heard a lot, ‘You managed last year without nine firefighters.’ We did. But we’re one call away from all that changing.”
Fire rating downgrade?
Fire Station 5 is meant to cover an area on the west side of the city bounded by Reed Road to the east and just past Babylon Road to the west, running north just past Highway 82 and south to Highway 182.
Yarbrough said it had operated “sporadically” the first 10 years after it was built, manned by only one or two shifts at different times. It first operated with a full staff – three shifts of three firefighters each – in 2020, as the city made its successful push to earn a Class 3 rating from the Mississippi State Rating Bureau, improving from a Class 4 on the 10-class rating scale and placing it among the eight highest-rated fire departments in the state.
Since the station closed, service to the area comes from Station 2 at the airport and Station 3, located at the intersection of Garrard Road and Highway 389.
If MSRB reassessed the city now, Yarbrough believes its fire rating would be downgraded. Losing the status would be “disappointing,” he said, but not as much as the practicalities it would signify.
With Station 5 operating, all of the city’s stations are no more than 1.5 miles from another one. Without it, they are stretched farther apart.
When Station 5 is open, response times to calls in its service area average 3 minutes or less. With it closed, it could take closer to 5 minutes to reach the westernmost properties. That might not seem like much, Yarbrough said, until you think about what a fire department does.
“Eighty-six percent of our responses are medical calls,” he said. “If you have a person who’s not breathing, of course every second counts. … As far as fire response, a fire doubles in size every minute. So, 2 minutes is a long time.”
When there is a structure fire anywhere in the city, three trucks must respond. With Station 5 open, that left two staffed trucks to cover the city while the others were engaged on scene. Without it, there’s only one.
This year, SFD has responded to “eight or nine” full structure fires citywide, Yarbrough said, but it has prevented several others.
“We get stove fires and kitchen fires all the time that could turn into structure fires,” he said. “The only reason they don’t is because our guys get to the scene so quickly and put them out. … We don’t produce a lot of money, but we save (property owners) millions just by being here.”
MSRB assesses fire departments every 5 years but will assess upon request if a fire department has a concern or is trying to upgrade, said Stephen Applewhite, a public protection analyst with the bureau.
The bureau looks at staffing, water availability and response infrastructure to assign ratings, he said. While he acknowledged the shuttered fire station could affect Starkville’s rating, the city has time to correct the issue.
“We’re not the type of entity that’s going to go out there tomorrow, and say, ‘Oh, it’s closed, so you’re no longer a Class 3.’ There’s more than just the fire department that gets affected by these ratings. It’s the citizens.
“… We work with the fire departments,” he added. “If it’s something they are working to correct, we’ll monitor that. If it’s something where they say, ‘We’re permanently closing Station 5,’ then we would come out there and reassess.”
Most homeowners may see little difference in insurance rates between Class 3 and 4, Applewhite said. Commercial building owners are more likely to see greater savings.
Pay, turnover
When Yarbrough started at SFD in 1995, he was among a majority of personnel who planned to retire there. As the next 28 years have passed, he’s found himself very much in the minority in terms of longevity.
“Now we have people who come in looking for a job and not a career,” he said.
Part of what has changed, Yarbrough said, is pay.
According to city records provided to The Dispatch, an entry-level firefighter makes $12.15 an hour. With the proposed raises that could go in effect Oct. 1, that would only jump to $12.60.
That’s not competitive with nearby fire departments, such as Columbus or Tupelo, Yarbrough said.
“Right now, people can go to a convenience store or a restaurant and make as much or more than a firefighter,” he said.
As of early August, Yarbrough reached the rare benchmark of having all of his 59 budgeted positions filled. He doesn’t believe that will last.
“If I’m being honest with you, I believe by the end of September we’ll be hiring again,” he said.
How important is Station 5?
Mayor Lynn Spruill said she wants to reopen the fire station at some point. She said she is also willing to discuss allowing an ambulance service, such as Pafford, to use it while leaving fire services as-is.
“Even when we were operating (Station) 5, I’m not sure the call ratio … warranted a structure that (was) open 24/7, 365.”
While Spruill is proud of the city’s fire rating and wants to keep it, she noted the price tag may be too high.
“We also did very well (keeping citizens safe) with a fire rating of 4,” Spruill said. “… Ideally, I’d love to have Fire Station 5 open, but ideally, I’d love to have a lot of things.”
Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty has other ideas. He said he is likely to vote for the tax increase this year to fund pay raises, and he wants to find money – through increased revenue, spending cuts or both – to reopen the station and maintain the city’s fire rating.
“I’m committed to us finding the revenue, by whatever means necessary in the next couple of years, to hire all the people we need to fully staff Station 5,” he said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 46 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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