Department History

Organized in 1961 and then chartered on June 10, 1968 as Mayo Area

Fire District to protect the citizens of the Mayo community. We began in

what has been called "the hole" which was a two bay station dug back

into a bank of dirt with a dirt roof, just off Highway 221 on Mayo Rd.

Our trucks were mostly homemade out of old military surplus.

Then in 1972, the Board of Commissioners of the department had the

vision to acquire a federal loan and build a new building and purchase a

used 1957 American La France pumper truck from the Croft Fire

Department which at that time was known as Huntington Woods. This

station was built on the existing property at 142 Mayo Rd. and when

finished the old building was demolished and the hole filled in.

This building and that truck along with a couple of other used trucks

that we were able to buy or build ourselves, served the community for

the next 30 years. During this time we were fortunate enough for this

community to support a milage increase referendum which allowed for

us to purchase the first brand new truck that Mayo had ever owned.

This was a 1993 E-One / Freightliner pumper with a 1250 gallon a

minute pump and a 1000 gallon water tank. Then in 1996 there was a

demonstrator truck made available to us at a much discounted price.

The board met and decided that due to what we were spending on

keeping some of the old trucks running and in operation, we could sell

them and would be able to afford this truck to replace them. So in 1996

we purchased a 1996 KME/Freightliner 4-door pumper with a 1500

gallon a minute pump and a 1000 gallon water tank.

In 1998 we had an Insurance Services Organization (ISO) inspection.

This company rates fire departments nation wide and that rating

dictates what homeowners pay for their homeowners insurance. Even

with the purchase of these 2 trucks, our rating was not going to improve

due to the Buck Creek area of our district being more than 5 road miles

from the Mayo station. Parts of their recommendations were that we

look into purchasing some land and place a sub-station somewhere in

the Buck Creek area. We began looking at land in this area and were

eventually able to find a piece of land for sale. After a real hard look at

our financial situation it was determined that there wasn't any way we

could afford to undertake this project. The board met several times and

it was determined that the only way we could do this was to go to the

voters for a milage increase. Once again the residents of the community

came through in a big way and approved the increase. We purchased

the land and constructed a 3 bay station in the 1200 block of Buck Creek

Rd. This gave every resident in our district the benefit of being within 5

road miles of one of the two stations.

This served us well until the late 2000’s when due to work and time

constraints, it became harder and harder to get and keep volunteers.

Also due to new regulations from the National Fire Protection

Association (NFPA) and the Insurance Services Organization (ISO)

which state that structural firefighting apparatus more than 20 years

old will not be recognized as front line equipment, we were left with

some decisions to make. With the downturn of the economy and the lack

of businesses in the Mayo Fire District there wasn’t any good avenue to

replace our two aging pumper trucks, one being a 1993 and the other a

1996, before they reached that 20 year age limit.

It was decided to try a referendum for a bond to allow us to replace the

trucks, and make some needed changes to the station and some needed

equipment purchases. By doing this it would free up existing funding to

allow us to be able to put on paid personnel at least during the day,

through the daytime Monday thru Friday to provide our residents the

protection and service they deserved. The referendum was placed on

the ballot Nov. 2012 and passed with an overwhelming majority of the

voters in favor of the bond.

Specs for the new trucks were put together and in December of 2013

Mayo Fire District took delivery of 2 brand new pumpers that will serve

us well into the future. We also in late 2011 put on part time paid

personnel Monday thru Friday from 8am to 4pm. This worked well but

as the district continued to grow and volunteer coverage was still

dwindling we increased our paid coverage to 24 hour a day on Friday,

Saturday, and Sunday in late 2012 and in 2013 added 24 hour coverage

on Thursdays’. While we still have volunteer service and this is still a

large part of our service group, the 2 paid personnel means that when

someone needs assistance, there are at least 2 trained personnel

responding as soon as the alarm comes in.

We continue to strive to provide the best service available to our

residents, and as we continue to grow with the community, we thank

you for your unwavering support.