As town leaders in past years split into factions over issues of cost versus long-term investment, the projected outlay fell, bit by bit, from as high as $7 million in some estimates to $3 million in two unsuccessful bond votes last year.

The debate continued, to a smaller extent, on Wednesday as board members weighed whether to adopt another cost-saving suggestion of White's: remove several parking spaces from the proposed facility's lot.

The architect recommended the reduction in order to avoid having to spend extra money -- about $100,000 -- on pervious pavement, which he said a larger lot likely would need in order to secure a stormwater permit from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

This request from the Selectboard would pay for a combined police and fire station off Main Street with a rough gross square footage of 5,900.

"It does represent a paradigm shift for firefighters," North Charleston Fire Chief Greg Bulanow said. "What they are finding in lessons learned from (mass shootings) is that many more lives could be saved if firefighters and EMS respond into the so-called 'warm zone,' the areas where the shooter isn't active, but had been. By going in and quickly controlling bleeding and evacuating patients, they can save a lot of lives."

Saying that the body armor provides an added level of protection for firefighters responding to potentially dangerous situations, departments across the nation, including Dallas, Denver, Milwaukee, and Madison, Wisconsin, have added them as standard firefighter equipment recently.

The city of Cleveland bought 100 vests for its firefighters in July, about two weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention, with plans to add 50 more so that every firefighter on duty will have one.

To get a better price, North Charleston plans to order with the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, which will order 288, and the Charleston Police Department, which plans to order 458. Each vest costs about $485.

The North Charleston Fire Department plans to buy 100 vests, which will be assigned to its trucks and will enable each firefighter to have one during his or her shift. The department has about 250 employees.

"Our Fire Department is first responders for EMS," said Mayor Keith Summey. "EMS goes into active shootings to take people out, and our firefighters will be doing the same. We owe it to our people to protect them as well as we can."

Charleston County EMS units all have the vests, officials said.

The slip-over vests North Charleston plans to buy have plates that are capable of stopping high-power rifle rounds from the types of military-style rifles used in recent incidents in Orlando, Dallas and Baton Rouge, according to city officials.

After the "Spokane Firestorm" in October 1991, Wash. state passed the Fire Mobilization Act in 1992 to ensure that fire resources would be available to assist other departments throughout the state in case of large conflagrations or other incidents beyond local control. Since then, fire mobilization has been used nearly 200 times for wildland and other types of incidents throughout Washington.

The state also pays for the use of the fire equipment and firefighters. Firefighters gain valuable experience they could never get in training. This pays big dividends when they return home. Mobilizations last three to five days, but may be up to 14 days long.