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and rescue squad. Washington, Amissville, Flint Hill, Castleton, and Chester Gap have fire and rescue together as one unit.
The number of miles that these units have to cover in responding to an emergency can be 20 or 30, possibly more if nearby squads are unmanned at the time. Many secondary roads are narrow, unpaved, or both.
Sweet noted that the county population has increased by more than 1000 in recent years. He said that many new people “come from heavily populated areas and were used to public services being provided promptly and for ‘free’ (costs for such services are buried in taxes)... they build expensive houses and don’t realize that they may well be located a lot farther from emergency help than they used to be.”
Currently, 75 people work as volunteer fire and rescue personnel within the county. Sweet is finding it increasingly difficult to find and recruit volunteers.
He observed “young people here in the county are less and less interested in becoming volunteers, particularly when they find out that a lot of training,
97.8%