FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – In an effort to cut down response time for residents facing an emergency, the City of Palm Coast welcomed the newest addition to Station 25 on Wednesday morning. In a joint partnership, the station is now home to the Flagler County Fire Rescue ambulance, as the two agencies work in tandem to serve residents within Flagler County.
Palm Coast Fire Chief Kyle Berryhill was pleased to add the additional support for residents in the some of the busiest calls for service areas of Palm Coast.
“The way the partnership is designed with the Palm Coast Fire Department and the Flagler County Fire Rescue, is really integral to how we operate,” said Berryhill.
“We believe that we need to have five personnel on the first arriving company to do the best job for our citizens, and so the combination of a three-person engine and two-person rescue responding out of five out of the six fire houses that Palm Coast Fire Department runs out of is really great for our citizens. It helps them with their homeowner’s insurance, it helps protect our incident priorities are life, safety, conservation. The sooner we get to these things, we’re in the time business, the better we do. The relationship we have with Chief Tucker and Chief Sales and the Flagler County Fire Rescue, and then the firefighters have a great relationship, supporting each other. This is a great day for our citizens and a great day for fire service in Flagler County.”
Berryhill credited Flagler County Fire Chief Mike Tucker with the research to identify where the new ambulance was needed most.
“This is right in between the three busiest rescues in Flagler County. Chief Tucker has done the research on this to show why this is a really valuable thing. It’s going to keep there from being two calls in the area which happens, especially in the Kohl’s station’s area, all the time. This cluster was in a triangulated area and it will take the first call in it’s zone rather than pull from some other places,” said Berryhill.
Tucker has steadily made improvements to Flagler County’s fire service since taking the helm in 2021, and in an effort to prioritize resident and staff safety, works closely with his staff to identify opportunities to upgrade or enhance existing services.
“Obviously there’s a lot of growth going on in the county. The reality is every time we add people to the county, there’s a correlating impact. Within Flagler County we have about a 15 percent consumption rate so for every 100 people that move into the county, that’s about 15 calls that happen. 80 percent of our calls are medical. Adding this ninth rescue to the system is going to help stabilize that and get that call volume down to where we can handle it with less wear and tear on the crews,” said Tucker.
Flagler County currently houses within Palm Coast’s Stations Rescue 21, Rescue 22, and Rescue 24 and Rescue 11 in Flagler Beach.
“We work and respond with each other so much that living together really helps functionality of the crews,” he said. “If we had to do 100 percent stand alone, the cost to the citizens would be phenomenal. By having these interlocal agreements we can help each other on the big calls, handle our own calls when we have to and use our tax payer dollars to the best benefit.”
Flagler Chairman Andy Dance had the honor of cutting the ribbon on the new addition Wednesday morning, and his remarks reflected the growing positive relationship between Flagler County and the City of Palm Coast.
“I think it’s one of those things where we’re taking joint use of facilities, so we have rescue and fire department in the same facility. Palm Coast in their expansion is designing places for rescue within their facilities,” said Dance.
“In this particular location is based on service calls. They’re redistributing and adding this one to the circuit based on service calls to spread out the calls more evenly.”
