Brown County and the cities of Brownwood, Early and Bangs have been doing studies for the last several months on upgrading the communications equipment for law enforcement and fire departments.

The 10 volunteer departments in the county feel now is the time to outfit every volunteer with portable and mobile radios to communicate with all agencies over more than 99 percent of Brown County.  Right now, their radio communications cover roughly 60 to 70% of the county.

To that end, Fire Chiefs and members of the 10 volunteer fire departments in Brown County and Brownwood Fire Chief Eric Hicks appeared before County Commissioners Monday morning asking for significant upgrades to their radio communications equipment.

“Right now, if I’m running an incident at United Grocery, if I’m Incident Commander, I cannot even communicate with my people inside United.  You get out in the county and it (radio coverage) really goes to pot,” said Chad Hill, Chief of the Early Volunteer Fire Department. (shown in photo addressing Commissioners)

“It’s a huge safety factor.  Right now, we are asking for a dual band radio which is your VHF as well as the 700 megahertz,” Hill said.  Hill said volunteer firefighters are putting their lives on the line every day and the system is needed for them to adequately and safely do their job.

The request made was for 128 portable radios and 57 mobiles to be divided up among the volunteer departments in the county.  The price tag is approximately $674,000.   The new radios would work within the system being shared by the communities of Brownwood, Early and Bangs.  The new system is expected to be operational in about nine months.

“This system is truly needed,” said Brownwood Fire Chief Eric Hicks.  He compared the current system to having to settle for your personal cell phone not working in some locations.

Commissioners have already tentatively committed $378,000 in the upcoming budget year for some but not all radio equipment being asked for.  No action taken by commissioners on Monday.

Since July 1, volunteer firefighters in Brown County have responded to 394 emergency calls, including a number of grass fires.