A truck sits inside Station 3 of the Alvaton Volunteer Fire Department on Monday, the first day part-time firefighters were on duty during daytime hours in Warren County. (JACK DOBBS / The Daily News)

“This is a great day.”

This was the consensus on Monday as eight part-time firefighters started their first day of work, split between the volunteer fire departments in Richardsville and Alvaton.

Mason Hamilton, chief of the Alvaton VFD, told the Daily News that by Monday afternoon, the department had responded to four calls, two of which were in the Alvaton district. He said the recent move to part-time staffing for volunteer departments was something long overdue.

“As a volunteer system, we’re well over 4,000 runs per year,” Hamilton said. “As a traditional, all-volunteer program, that’s pretty taxing on our members.”

Reworking the volunteer fire departments has been a focus for county government for some time. Last year, the Warren Fiscal Court solicited a study of the county’s VFD’s from fire-consultants MissionCIT, a study that resulted in hiring Fire Coordinator Bill Rector.

Rector told the Daily News in July that the plan is to have around 20 part-time firefighters stationed “at strategically located places” around the county during daytime hours Monday through Friday.

Magistrates on June 13 approved a laundry list of equipment purchases for new part-time personnel, from helmets and other personal protective equipment to four defibrillators. On Thursday, magistrates took additional steps, including approving a chain of command for the department.

Four million dollars has been set aside for the project in the county’s FY2026 budget, money that will go toward equipment, training and various other needs.

Hamilton said from around 2010 to 2018, one firefighter at the station was paid, and completed response tasks and different administrative needs. Between 2018 and Monday, no paid personnel were on site.

Speaking on a county-wide initiative, Hamilton said it will be “beneficial for everybody.”

“I think we’ll all see not only quicker response times, but we’ll have more full, competent crews on scene,” he said. “ … It’s a great day for the fire service in Warren County, all around.”

Rector said on Monday, the four-person crews at Alvaton and Richardsville handled around 10 calls during the day. Response times for those calls were decreased, something that hits the “exact mission we were focused on.”

“We’re meeting the benchmarks, so we’re doing really well,” he said.

Over 110 applications came into the county during the part-time staffing push, a number that was later whittled down to 75.

The crews at Alvaton and Richardsville are the first of a planned four crews that will ultimately be working in various areas of the county. By Sept. 1, the plan is to have two additional crews operating out of Browning and Smiths Grove.

“About three to four weeks after that, we intend to add an additional station in the Richardsville district, along with Gott and Plano,” Rector said.

Twenty-three firefighters will ultimately be working 7:30 to 5:30, Monday through Friday. In Rector’s words, it will be “a game changer” for the county.

“Every corner of the county will be impacted by this,” he said, adding that crews will rotate through Hadley and Barren River, and staffing at Woodburn sits down the road.

Judge-Executive Doug Gorman took it a step further, describing Monday as a “historic day” for Warren County.

“We’ve been a county since 1798, and today is the first day we’ve had paid firefighters that are taking care of the entire county,” Gorman said. “We’ve relied so heavily on our great volunteer fire departments … (and) help is coming their way and we needed to step up.”