CASSATT, S.C. — Residents in Cassatt might feel safer in the next year, as the county is works to take its volunteer fire station into a full-time 24-hour station.
"Years back, the county realized the need for a new station in Cassatt," said Kershaw County Fire Service Chief Will Glover.
The current volunteer station is located on Red Hill Church Road, but there will soon be a new station on Highway One, right beside the Dollar General in Cassatt.
"The current station in Cassatt wasn't able to hold those 24-hour positions, so they started the process of trying to build a new station in Cassatt," Glover said. "We had to find land, of course, to start with, and once they acquired the land, we started the design phase of what we wanted it to look like. The living quarters, it has to be a little different than some of the stations we have now because people will be in it for 24 hours."
The Cassatt site averages around 150 calls a year, but those working there also respond to calls outside the district, making it a site that needs to be staffed at all hours.
"When the plan was done or study was done, they looked at a heat map where calls were and based off that heat map, this was one of the locations we needed 24-hour staff at," Glover said.
"So, responding to emergencies, the guys volunteer to do that. A 24/7 operation, all that will do is actually enhance the response time, for some of our older folks that stay here in Cassatt, so I think it's a good thing," said resident Christopher Hunter II.
Glover said they hope to have all bids in for the Request For Proposal by the end of October, and if they find a builder who has a price they can work with, construction will begin and would take around a year.