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Lexington County fire service says it stood ready during Calhoun County Sandy Run outage; mutual‑aid agreement to be updated
Summary
County fire officials described a brief 24–36 hour outage at Calhoun County's Sandy Run station, said Lexington County responded under existing mutual aid without increased call volume, and staff said they will seek a single mutual‑aid agreement with Calhoun County Rural Fire District.
Lexington County fire leaders told council members they responded under existing mutual aid to cover a short period when Calhoun County’s Sandy Run fire station was temporarily offline, and county staff said they will update mutual‑aid paperwork with Calhoun County to simplify agreements.
Deputy Administrator Luckadoo and Fire Chief Kyle Minnick described a meeting with Calhoun County officials after the neighboring county temporarily took the Sandy Run station out of service. Jeff Price, Calhoun County’s county coordinator, contacted Lexington County; leaders met the next day to clarify coverage and response expectations.
Chief Minnick said Lexington County routinely provides mutual aid into parts of Calhoun County and that, during the Sandy Run outage, Lexington County would have been asked to provide primary response resources on the interstate in that area. “The ask would have been for us to be primary on that, which would have put 2 Lexington County resources on the interstate,” Minnick said, and added that Calhoun County preemptively moved an asset to provide local coverage.
Minnick told the committee the county did not see an increase in calls during the roughly 24–36 hour period that Sandy Run was down. He said the county is updating the mutual aid paperwork so Lexington County will have “one mutual aid agreement with Calhoun County Rural Fire District instead of individual mutual aid agreements with 3 fire stations in Calhoun County.”
Why it matters: mutual aid agreements define which jurisdictions respond to emergencies across borders and how agencies backfill each other. Committee members raised concerns about potential simultaneous demands on Lexington County resources, and staff emphasized they kept enough resources to serve Lexington County residents while the mutual‑aid response stood ready.
Next steps and timing: officials said Calhoun County held an emergency meeting and moved the effective date of their ordinance change to July 1 to provide time to finalize administrative steps. Lexington County staff said they will draft an updated mutual aid agreement and bring it to the council for consideration.
