Louisa, Ky- Lawrence County Emergency Management was notified that after a board meeting last evening the Blaine Volunteer Fire Department was closing after 30 years according to Jim Wilson, Chief. The reasons stated at the meeting was not enough manpower and lack of community support Wilson said. The fire department has recently purchased some additional equipment and appears to be very financially sound
according to the records that were shown to Emergency Management and turned over to the county this morning.

This is a sad situation but let me point out that Blaine Fire Dept isn’t the only volunteer emergency service in this position said Harold Slone, Lawrence Counties Director of Emergency Management. People are having to work longer and more hours in this struggling economy to make ends meet at home which doesn’t leave alot of spare time to volunteer for civic organizations.

Fire and Rescue services are both time consuming and very stressful. Many hours of training is now required of volunteers just the same as paid fire fighters. All of this is making it more and more difficult for small communities to maintain a fire department.

We are gonna step in with some guidance and support and try to rebuild the fire department. We are gonna actively recruit some of the old members that have had previous training and may have left for different reasons as well as new members that will need to be trained.

I urge the community to get behind this effort and support the fire department in every way possible. I am confident together we can make this work and get the fire department responding again soon.