Plans for a study on Stafford County's fire and rescue services are moving along.
On June 19, the Board of Supervisors will probably approve a request for what the study will encompass.
Who will do the study is still to be determined.
The county will send a request to the Virginia Department of Fire Programs, a state organization that offers free studies for localities.
Stafford will also accept bids from private consultants.
Later this summer, supervisors will decide how to proceed.
On Tuesday, the board's Public Safety Committee reviewed a final draft of the scope of work.
The county's career and volunteer units were combined under one chief six years ago. Much has changed in Stafford since then, but the last time a study was done on the department was nearly 10 years ago.
Two key questions to be answered are:
What should Stafford's fire and rescue service levels be?
Is the county optimizing its fire and rescue resources?
The department has a goal to respond to 90 percent of all calls in under eight minutes. Overall, the department's eight-minute response from the time of the call to being on the scene has hovered around 70 percent for career and volunteer units.
The study will ask whether the 90 percent goal is still a good mark, or whether there should be other levels of service considered.
Also in the study, Interim Fire Chief Mark Lockhart asked that medical services be specifically mentioned in the request, rather than being included as part of "rescue."
The study will include an analysis of staffing, training, vehicle fleet and replacement plan, and stations.
However, the county's last study included many suggestions for moving stations to other locations.
"It's just not practical at this stage," Supervisor Jack Cavalier said.
This time, supervisors are likely to specify that analysis on the facilities should focus on what can be done now.
Supervisors will set a 30-day bid period when the study is approved at the June 19 meeting. The study would take 90 days to complete.
Studies from the Virginia Department of Fire Programs tend to focus on smaller, rural counties. Spotsylvania County was the largest county studied recently by the state organization.
Katie Thisdell: 540/735-1975
Email: kthisdell@freelancestar.com