Baker has 15 volunteers, and he and his team respond to around 150 calls per year. They’ve already taken on 107 this year, he said.

The team is self-dispatched — Baker listens to the departments’ radios and determines when his team should go.

“We haven’t missed a second-alarm fire,” Baker said. He said he and his volunteers respond to 80 percent of “working fires,” and will sometimes go even if it’s something minor.

The organization, a nonprofit, got its name from how the state is broken up into fire districts — District 5 covers all of the North Shore, including Peabody, Danvers, Beverly and Salem, to Cape Ann.

It has five vehicles, including two buses and an old ambulance, Baker said. They’re stored in Peabody.

When a home or building is on fire, getting to it as quickly as possible is always a firefighter's goal.

Tulsa Fire Chief Ray Driskell says the ideal response time for firefighters is six minutes or less. His department reaches that goal about 87 percent of the time, but he says that's not good enough.

One recommendation from the Center for Public Safety Management study is to reduce the response time in east Tulsa, something the chief says is already being addressed with plans to build a new station.

Driskell said, "There's several neighborhoods out there that have developed over the recent years, and we're not responding to them like we are the rest of the city and we need to fix that. That doesn't need to stay the same."

The fire chief says the immediate priority for the department is to build a station in east Tulsa. It will be paid for in part by Vision money, but it's unclear when construction will begin.

But, there are other recommendations - like hiring civilians as fire marshals and inspectors - that might need a little more discussion with city leaders.

"If you've been a fireman, you've been on a firetruck - you know a lot more about fire behavior, you know a lot more about what a fire is gonna do on a structure and what the codes mean to us. So, I can see a big benefit to having the fire marshals having firefighting experience over a civilian," Captain Jerry Gibbens said.

Mayor Dewey Bartlett said the study also focused on the medical calls the department performs as part of the city's emergency medical services. Findings include a recommendation to form two-person squads to respond to medical calls while keeping fire engines available for fire calls.

"We not only want to take care of patients at the hospital, but also want to be sure we're improving the lives of people before they come to the facility and after they leave," Watson said. "Working with our Healthcare Foundation to make this donation to the fire department helps us fulfill one of those goals. We're very proud with the partnership between Maury Regional EMS and the Columbia Fire Department. They work very well together.".

The Maury Regional Healthcare Foundation celebrated 10 years of service in June. Over the past five years, the foundation has worked to provide services beyond what is offered at Maury Regional Medical Center, executive director Joe Kilgore said..

Often, firefighter units arrive on the scene of a call before EMS, Critical Care Paramedic at CFD Cody Hill said. With the new equipment, firefighters can see if a patient is having a heart attack and its location prior to EMS arrival. .

"We'll be able to do all of this before EMS arrives on the scene and we can notify the hospital. We'll also notify a cath lab to let them know our EMS crew is going to be coming in with a heart attack, so they can kind of get the ball rolling on everything," Hill said. "That'll save them minutes, which of course could be somebody's life, and they can turn around and go right to the hospital without having to sit on the scene running those tests."

Fire Chief Ian Brill said the all-volunteer department is looking forward to having the new engine in their firefighting arsenal, as the most recent engine was purchased in 1994.

He said the department strives to get at least 20 years of service out of their trucks and engines.

Like many of the volunteer fire companies in Fauquier County, Remington is staffed by a cadre of professional firefighters and EMTs who work in adjacent counties such as Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun. All together, the department has about 100 volunteers, said Brill.

And also like other volunteer companies in Fauquier County, Remington depends on fund raising activities to purchase equipment such as their new Seagrave engine.

While the county levy for fire services provides most of the day to operation expenses for the department, including fuel costs and some equipment, Brill pointed out is the community, through their donations, that fund major expenses such as new trucks and engines.

"We did some pretty extensive fund raising," Brill said, adding the department depends on events such as the annual Fireman's Carnival, the crab and shrimp dinners, and two sports batches each year. The crab dinner is coming up Sept. 17, he noted.