Fire District Warns Without 576 Percent Fee Increase, Response Times Could More Than Double

HIGGINS (CBS13) — A fire district is calling for a 576 percent increase in fees, saying its response time may increase to nearly 20 minutes without the extra finding.

The Higgins Fire District covers 90 square miles just north of Auburn. Firefighters say federal funding is about to expire, and now they need voters to agree to foot a larger bill.

The 4,700 property tax payers in the district have only been paying $25 a year for fire and medical services from the department. The district is asking residents to pay $144, or $12 a month.

"We try to do our best and we can't two places or three places at one given time," said firefighter Peter Marchinek. "Right now we're staffing three fire stations with a SAFER grant from FEMA, and that's only a temporary fix until March of 2016."

Without that tax, he warns majors changes could be coming with firefighter layoffs and response times more than doubling.