Local Government 101: How fire and ambulance service works here

📚 Local Government 101

🏠 New to Brunswick County? Here’s how fire and ambulance service actually works here — because it’s not one system, it’s three, working together.

🚒 FIRE: Most of the fire departments in our area are private nonprofit volunteer departments — Calabash, Grissettown-Longwood, Shallotte Point, and others. They’re funded by a county fire fee on property owners, plus grants and fundraising. But “volunteer” is mostly history now: with call volume way up and volunteers harder to find, most of these departments are now staffed mainly by paid firefighters.

A few towns run their own: Sunset Beach has a municipal combination department, Ocean Isle Beach has a town department, and Shallotte Fire/Rescue is a town department with full-time career firefighters.

Here in Carolina Shores, fire protection comes from the Calabash Fire Department — a nonprofit with volunteer, part-time, and full-time staff, 14 vehicles including a fire boat, with stations in Calabash and near Brunswick Plantation. Departments back each other up on big calls through mutual aid, so the closest crew responds first.

🚑 AMBULANCE: This part is county government. Brunswick County EMS is a paramedic-level service run by the county out of Bolivia, with 23 ambulances and 16 quick-response vehicles stationed around the county. Our local base is EMS Base 6 in Calabash, on Beach Drive SW; the Sunset Beach side is covered by Base 3 off Old Georgetown Road. When you call 911, the county dispatch center sends the closest ambulance — not necessarily the one from your town.

Here’s the part most newcomers don’t know: your local firefighters are usually your first medical responders. Roughly half to 60% of what our fire departments run are medical calls, not fires. Firefighters arrive first to stabilize, then the county ambulance transports. For life-or-death emergencies, the county can call in the medical helicopter from Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center in Bolivia.

💰 THE FUNDING FIGHT: Brunswick County is the only county in North Carolina still funding fire service with a fire fee, a system from 1999 that county leaders now say can’t keep up with growth. The county board formed a committee in June to design a replacement — likely a fire tax — targeted for July 1, 2027. That decision will affect every homeowner’s bill and every department’s staffing, and we’ll be following it.

📞 What to do: in any emergency, call 911 and know your exact address — including your subdivision and any gate code. The dispatcher, the fire crew, and the ambulance all work off that.