NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – Nassau County is the fifth fastest-growing county in Florida, according to county officials, with new subdivisions going in all over the area. It’s also the 40th fastest-growing county in the country.
News4Jax started investigating whether the county has adequate fire services to keep up with the growth. Sources who work in the fire and rescue field brought this to our attention, and we also brought it up in the News 4 Nassau County Facebook group. We received a few responses like these:
“The infrastructure/ services in Nassau County have not increased as the population has increased,” wrote one commenter. “The County continues to approve new construction while the necessary services and infrastructure stay status quo.”
“Status quo means a long time of waiting for the first units and then second and third due units for structure fires,” wrote another commenter.
So News4Jax reached out to Nassau County Fire Rescue, along with the Nassau County Department of Planning and Economic Opportunity.
News4Jax met with Fire Chief Brady Rigdon at the new fire station being built in Yulee on Chester Road near the Heron Isles neighborhood. That station is slated to open in April or May. Rigdon said that they have done their best to keep up with growth and increased their manpower to fire calls.
“Three years ago, we were riding two people on every engine company, and NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) recommends there’s four on every engine,” Rigdon said. “We approached our board about it, and the board was very agreeable to us increasing our staffing.”
There is another fire station that’s slated to be built just west of Interstate 95, but that is not expected to be completed for at least two years.
Rigdon said the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners has been helpful in providing the finances to accommodate the growth, but calls for service continue to increase.
Here’s a look at medical and fire calls over the last three years:
- In 2018, there were 8,767 calls for service (through November).
- In 2019, there were 9,026 calls for service (through November).
- In 2020, there were 9,227 calls for service (through November).
We also looked at staffing levels in the fire and rescue department:
- In 2016-17, the number of staff was 105.
- In 2017-18, it increased to 108 and the department added a tanker truck.
- In 2018-19, the number of staff increased to 111 and the department added another tanker.
- In 2019-20, the number of staff jumped to 123 and another tanker was added.
- In 2020-21, it jumped to 141 staff members and the department added a new engine.
There are also issues regarding the different parts of the county, specifically western Nassau County versus eastern Nassau County. The average response time countywide for a 911 call in 2020 was 9 minutes and 35 seconds, which Rigdon would prefer to be lower.
“Our average response time countywide is a little over eight minutes from the time of dispatch to arrival, which is high. But considering the distance we can travel -- you have to take distance into consideration,” Rigdon said.
Nassau County Fire and Rescue is not unusually high with respect to response times, as News4Jax has tracked other agencies over the years. For instance, in a 2016 investigation, we found that for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, some response times in certain parts of town were closer to 6 minutes, while other response times were as high as 20 minutes.
In 2019, we looked at response times for the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and found the agency’s average response time for a priority call had increased since 2016. In 2016, the average response time for a priority call was 9 minutes and 39 seconds. In comparison, it was 11 minutes and 28 seconds in 2019.
The average response can be above 8 minutes in Nassau County because it’s higher in the western end of the county in communities like Hilliard and Callahan. That region is more rural and spread out, making for longer response times. While that is something people who move to a rural setting often expect, it will be a challenge in the coming years.
“We’re issuing about a thousand residential building permits a year. We expect that to continue if not increase,” said Thad Crowe, director of the county’s planning department. “I think the big sleeping giant of a challenge is western Nassau. Jacksonville is definitely growing to the northwest and the Lem Turner Road corridor.”
Crowe said the county pays for emergency services through impact fees that are levied every time a home is built, but it takes time for those fees to translate into something tangible like a new fire station.
“What pays for the growth can’t pay for the growth until it’s there, until it’s on the ground,” he said. “It takes years to plan for and build capital facilities, and a fire station could be $10 million. It can take years to get the wherewithal to construct that.”