Collier County communities won’t lose their fire protection

A battle over a fire station will not leave a community without fire protection.

Collier County and Greater Naples Fire District agreed in 2016, saying “Naples Fire” has run the stations in Everglades City and Port of the Isles.

Now, Naples Greater Fire says they are $1,300,000 over budget, and they need extra money from the county. In January, the fire district told the county they have 90 days to find the extra funding, or they’re pulling out.

Commissioner Bill McDaniel said negotiations were already underway with the fire department.

“They made what I perceived to be as a rather drastic decision to withdraw as of May 1, and in an effort to get the county’s attention. When they already had the county’s attention,” Commissioner McDaniel said.

Nolan Sapp, the fire chief for Greater Naples Fire said the agreement was bad from the start. But they wanted to get the county to act fast and come up with a new deal.

“Some dead deadlines had to be established. So the board of fire commissioners felt it was important to establish a deadline to say, Look, you guys need to get busy negotiating his contract,” Chief Sapp said.

Commissioner McDaniel said ultimately the county will end up having to pay the department more to ensure everyone has fire protection.