WearTV.com - Thursday, June 26th, 2025
HOLLEY, Fla. -- Construction on Holley’s only fire station wrapped up in April, but there are no firefighters manning the station.
The $3.5 million dollar project broke ground last July with the intent of serving the more than 3,000 residents in the area. But now, there’s no money to pay the firefighters to work there.
In 2022, the community voted against the referendum to increase the property taxes to pay for the firefighters to man the station.
Holley-Navarre Fire District Chief Kevin Louis says having this station sit empty is not only impacting response times but also property insurance rates.
Walking inside Station 44 in Holley you’ll notice the building smells brand new. It's got a fresh coat of paint, brand new kitchen and a freshly greased fire pole.
But Lewis says this 6,000 square foot building won't be permanently manned for a while.
"Back in 2022, we applied for state appropriations to build a station," Lewis said. "We also went to the voters for our increase in our property tax to staff the station, but the property tax failed to pass the voters. So now, we don’t have the money to put people in the station.”
The project cost $3.5 million to build. To man it, Lewis says it would cost $600,000 a year. The fastest response time to this area is around 15 minutes when he says it should be 3 to 5 minutes.
"Those minutes are super critical," Lewis said. "A fire will double in size every 30 seconds. So with a normal little bedroom fire, the whole house is on fire by the time we get there. Then when it comes to heart attacks, the brain starts to die in 4 to 6 minutes."
It's not just a safety concern. Property insurance rates are also much higher out here because the fire station is not operational. Mary Jordan runs Gulf Coast Insurance.
"It’s not that they can’t get insurance," said Jordan. "It’s just they’ll be limited by what carriers will take it. There are certain carriers that will not write in those areas that have a PC 10 rating.”
Jordan says the average property insurance rate in this area averages from $6,000 to $10,000 a year. She said once the station comes online, those rates should be cut in half.
Chief Lewis says they are going to try again at the next election to pass the referendum to man the station. He says, in the meantime, they will try and have a truck at the station here every once in a while, but due to staffing that will not always be possible.