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Funding

Primary Funding - County Contract

Pine Ridge Fire Department is a South Carolina registered non-profit corporation and charity  with 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service. Our primary funding is through an annual contract with Berkeley County to provide fire suppression and emergency response services to a designated sub-district of the Berkeley County Special Tax District for Fire Service. Our district is designated as the Pine Ridge Fire District and now includes the Sandridge, Longridge and Lebanon historic fire districts.  

The fees associated with this contract are assessed on each structure within the county based on a set formula and the size of the structure. These fees provide the funding to equip and train our firefighters and to cover personnel costs for rapid response. These fees are set by County Council and affect all subdistrics within the county. Fire fee adjustments have been, at times, requested by the Berkeley County Fire Chiefs' Association to offset the inflation of personnel, equipment, and utility costs but ultimately, the fees are set by County Council.  The most recent fee adjustments was approved after public hearing on June 26, 2023. The prior fee increase was in 2018.

Other Funding

Cost Recovery

Berkeley County Firefighters also respond to motor vehicle accidents involving people traveling to, from, or through our distric. Major roadways include I-26, Hiway 17A, Hiway 176 and other. Specialized equipment and training is needed in order to provide the best response to these accidents. Equipment includes rams, cutters, stabilization equipment, and hazardous material (oil & and fuel) containment equipment. Berkeley County had enacted Ordinance No. 23-08-57, an amemdment to Ordinance 80-03-04 which allows us to mitigate some of the costs associated with providing response services to these incidents. 

Berkeley County Council enacted Ordinance 23-10-748 to encourage residents and Premsises to propery use and maintain the affectivemes of Alarms in order to improve the reliability of those alarms and reduce, nitigae, and eliminate False Alarms and Nuisance Alarms which unduly use department resources and often delay response to actual emergencies. 

Grants

Pine Ridge Fire Department actively seeks out grant oportunities to benefit area residents and business. Recent Grants include: 

  • 2023 Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation Grant for extrication equipment.
  • 2023 Dircks Foundation Grant for training equipment and supplies 
  • 2022Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) for Self Contained Breathing Apparatus  (SCBA's)
  • 2022 Dircks Foundation Grant for training equipemtn and supplies
  • 2020 Travis Manion Foundation  Grant for the purchase of a Thermal Imaging Camera.
  • 2019 Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) for SCBA Fill Station, PPE washers, and Respirator fit test equipment.
  • 2018 FEMA AFG SAFER Grant that provided funding to hire full-time personnel when our staffing model included only part-time and volunteer firefighters. This grant provided the mechanism to provide consistancy throughout the week in response as well as asset management. 
  • 2016 Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation Grant

Donations

While Pine Ridge no longer actively solicits donations, we happily accept them. Donations are primarily used for recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters who actively support the departments efforts and are a vital part of our organization. Funding does not allow us to fully staff each of our stations on a full time bases. We rely heavily on the augmented staffing provided by our part-time and volunteer personnel.