The chance of having firefighters respond to a call in west Blount County is the same chance one gets with the toss of a coin.

“Right now, it’s a 50/50 shot whether anybody shows up or not,” said J.J. Ivey, chief of the West Blount Fire and Rescue Department. Ivey is also a professional firefighter at Mountain Brook.

“The biggest thing is, if you’re at home and your kid is choking, do you want somebody to come or do you want it to be a 50/50 chance that somebody is coming?” Ivey said.

That is the reason Ivey and many others are working toward the area becoming a fire district, which would require most people living in the district to pay annual fire dues.

The fire dues would be $150 a year for most residents, with exclusions for people in hardship situations and the elderly. Tim Sosobee, a member of the fire board, said about 80 percent of residents and businesses would pay the dues.

Right now, those living in the area have an option to pay $5 a month to the fire department; the funds are added onto their water bills.

Sosobee said 23 percent of the 5,000 houses and businesses in the fire district volunteer to pay the $5 monthly. That totals less than $14,000 a year; Ivey said the department spent $50,000 last year just on maintenance of vehicles.

Two years ago, the fire board mailed bills to all 5,000 structures for $150 for fire dues. He said only 11 percent paid the dues.

“It was so bad, we didn’t have enough money to send another mailout,” Sosobee said. 

Ivey said funding is by far the department’s biggest problem.

“If everybody paid their (volunteer) fire dues, we wouldn’t have to become a district,” he said.

The biggest benefit of becoming a fire district, according to Sosobee, is to have a guaranteed budget in order to hire full-time firefighters and to purchase and maintain equipment.

Sosobee has headed up an initiative to gather signatures in support of the fire district.

The goal was to get 1,200 signatures, but volunteers have received more than 1,500.

Sosobee will now submit the signatures to Probate Judge Chris Green and the Blount County Commission during a workshop meeting on Aug. 7 in Oneonta.

The Blount County Board of Registrars will confirm the signatures; if the minimum number are approved, voters in the area will see the fire district item on their ballots for the Nov. 4. general election.

The west Blount County department was founded in 1981. It has three fire stations; one each in Hayden, Smokerise and Sugar Creek. The all-volunteer department has 10 firefighters and covers about 70 square miles and 5,000 structures, including four schools.

According to Ivey, the fire department receives 90-100 calls each month.

“Imagine running out your door 90 times a month — day, night, during church or ball games — to respond to a call,” Sosobee said. “We’re getting so many calls we can’t get people to join. Or if they do, they don’t stay long.”

Most — about 60 percent — are medical calls. The firefighters also respond to vehicle accidents, five to eight house fires every month, and other calls from activated smoke alarms to turning off the water for citizens with burst water pipes.

The West Blount Fire and Rescue Department is not affiliated with Hayden or other local fire departments, even though it has a station in Hayden. However, Sosobee said that “excellent sister stations” such as Mt. High, Ricetown, Nectar and Warrior respond to calls in the area.

“Without them, it would make it difficult if not impossible to provide protection,” Sosobee said.

The fire department’s board of directors meets the fourth Tuesday of every month, 7 p.m., at Hayden Town Hall.

Sosobee invites all residents to attend, even those who object to the fire district.

“If they have a complaint, please come and help us find a better way,” he said. 

Editor’s note: Article edited at 1:41 p.m. in order to clarify a quote by Tim Sosobee.