Hood County weighs nearly $9 million in volunteer fire department equipment and station requests

Hood County Commissioners on March 31 heard requests from nine volunteer fire departments for new apparatus, breathing air equipment and station work and were told the package could total about $8.9 million to $10 million once quotes are updated.

The special-called meeting in Granberry centered on a spreadsheet of department requests compiled after a June workshop. Jeff Young, who presented the lists to the court, asked commissioners to treat radio replacements as a later project, saying the county’s emergency management coordinator intends to budget for some radio replacements only if a planned radio-core project moves forward. "I'm going to ask that the radios be considered down the road," Young said.

Why it matters: many of the county’s apparatus are well past their expected service lives. Staff told the court that five tankers and five…