The KMFD is very appreciative of the great community support for putting on another very successful Kings Mountain Art Fair, benefiting community organizations including the KMFD.
Many people donât realize, the majority of the volunteer fire departments across the US are supported through local, State, and Federal funding, via taxes and special assessments. In San Mateo County, the volunteer fire departments receive a majority of our support through fund raising by the local community. This local fund raising can be very time consuming and labor intensive for the volunteer fire departments, where many organizations have multiple fund raising events throughout the year to keep the volunteer fire departments running.
The KMFD is very fortunate to have the full support of our community with the annual Kings Mountain Art Fair. This provides a number of significant advantages for our training and supporting emergency responses:
- The majority of the KMFD Firefightersâ time is spent training and responding to calls, while other departments that donât have the Kings Mountain Art Fair level of support, have to spend additional time for fund raising, thus taking away from other fire department responsibilities.
- All the KMFDâs primary response apparatus (rescue, structure engine, wildland engine, off-road emergency response vehicle) are wholly owned by the KMFD. This ensures the vehicles are used to respond to the KMFD primary service areas, and cannot be required by governmental agencies to be pulled out of the local area for other emergencies.
- The KMFD apparatus are specifically designed, specified by our Firefighters, and purchased, to meet the special needs of our local area.
During the Kings Mountain Art Fair, the KMFD staffs the âFire Boothâ starting at 7:30 AM each morning until 6:00 PM each art fair day, to be able to respond to the general area, for visitors, volunteers, and artists when the fair grounds are occupied. We are also fortunate to have the daily support of an AMR fully staffed paramedic ambulance, that can respond immediately to any medical incidents that require advance life support that occurs up during the event.
This year, during the 3-day Kings Mountain Art Fair period, the KMFD responded to 17 incidents:
- 3 Water Tender responses (1 wildland fire on 280, and 2 structure fires on the south coast)
- 4 Public Assists
- 1 Vehicle Accident
- 9 Medical Aids
Having KMFD Firefighters and AMR Paramedics available at the Kings Mountain Art Fair grounds provided for quicker response times to each of these incidents.
Without the strong and unwavering support from our Kings Mountain community, it would be a much more difficult and time consuming job for all the KMFD Firefighter volunteers. We very much appreciate the communityâs volunteer time and energy spent during the Kings Mountain Art Fair, as it provides us the time and resources to contribute towards our communityâs safety.