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Hernando Today

Pact Would Erase Fire District Boundaries

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Kyle Martin

Published: January 31, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - The smoke column from a burning house could

be seen from the parking lot of the Brooksville Fire

Department.

But the fire engines in the bay stood silent.

Instead, a Hernando County Fire Rescue engine stationed

across the street roared to life and sped off towards

the fire.

Brooksville Fire Chief Tim Mossgrove stood powerless as

two other county fire engines raced by his station to

assist.

Unless a mutual aid request was made, the city would

not be responding.

"That's the type of frustration that's happened in the

past," Mossgrove said Thursday.

Now a new agreement seeks to erase those boundaries and

allow the automatic response of the closest resource —

regardless of the emblem on the apparatus.

The pact goes before the city council for approval on

Monday.

"Basically it makes (us) seamless," county Fire Chief

Mike Nickerson said. "Like one single department."

Sound familiar?

This was the ultimate objective of a commissioned fire

study released at the beginning of the year.

One of the recommendations from the Oregon-based

authors of the study was to drop jurisdictional borders

and send the most appropriate unit available to

maximize public safety.

The county and Spring Hill Fire Rescue departments

already employ this "automatic" method. For example, if

there was a crash at U.S. 19 and Cortez Boulevard, it

makes sense to send an engine from county Station No.

12 less than a mile away.

But if that county unit is tied up somewhere else, why

send a unit from the next closest station on Barclay

Avenue when there are Spring Hill units nearby?

Instead, county dispatchers will pick up the phone and

request a unit from Spring Hill to handle the scene.

It's automatic.

If a similar situation arises in the city of

Brooksville, or right outside its borders, the incident

commander has to expend all of his resources before

requesting mutual aid.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out two

neighboring departments need to work together,"

Mossgrove said.

Among the stipulations of the agreement:

The commanding officer on scene is in charge of all the

personnel on hand.

Extra units will be released as soon as possible back

to their jurisdiction so that coverage isn't

compromised.

The requested agency has the right to decline to

provide aid if the resources in the district are spread

too thin.

Besides dropping the likelihood of your house burning

to the ground, residents could see some savings in the

pocketbook.

Fire insurance is partly based on an ISO rating, which

is earned by a nonprofit company that evaluates a

variety of factors.

One of those is the number of units available to a fire

department. If this new agreement is approved, it would

greatly boost the amount of personnel showing up on the

scene.

All signs point to a consolidation of Brooksville's

dispatch with the county soon, though a formal contract

has yet to be drafted.

Mossgrove said that the agreement doesn't depend on the

dispatch transfer, though it would certainly make it

easier.

The fire chief is pleased to see all of the county's

departments pooling their resources together.

"The fire is no hotter in Brooksville than in Hernando

County," he said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or

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