Moore explains public safety to Lions Club

By BRENDA ALLUMSnews1@kilgorenewsherald.com

Director of Public Safety Ronnie Moore talks about police and fire organization for the City of Kilgore.

Kilgore Lions Club members were given an overview of the Kilgore Police and Fire Departments at their regular meeting Thursday.

Ronnie Moore, director of public safety for the city, explained the organization of both departments.

The fire department is comprised of 29 full-time personnel include one fire marshal, an operations chief, three battalion chiefs, six captains, nine drivers/engineers and nine firefighters. “We also try to maintain six part-time paid volunteer firefighters to work during vacations, sick leave, injury leave and other times,” Moore said. “We have these volunteers in order to maintain the required two in two out staffing required by the Texas Fire Commission.”

The “two in, two out” requirement means that when a firefighter enters a building, he must go in with a partner while two others wait outside.

In addition to explaining the different duties required by each member of the department, Moore explained that the department is now using five-inch hoses.

“We used to have to lay down four or five different size lines (at a fire),” he said. “Now with the bigger hoses we don’t have to unless there is an extreme situation.”

Moore said the five-inch hoses are nicer because “they don’t have to be washed or hung to dry like we had to do with the old hoses.”

Moore said the department does have other size water line include three-inch and 1.5-inch lines.

“We have about 6,000 feet of the larger line and about 6,000 feet of the smaller lines,” he said. “Total we have several miles of line available.”

The Kilgore Police Department has 31 sworn officers counting Moore.

The largest segment is in the patrol division which has 14 patrolmen. KPD has two captains, four sergeants, one criminal investigation sergeant, three criminal investigation detectives, a K-9 officer, a school resource officer, an administrative support officer, two drug enforcement officers and a code enforcement officer.

Nine civilians are employed by the department including an administrative assistant, records clerk/communications, records clerk and six communications personnel.

“We are in need of additional personnel in the patrol and CID divisions,” Moore said. “OUt workload continues to increase each year.”

Moore said patrol-generated DWI’s, citations, accidents and reports have all increased.

“CID’s caseload is also up with the increase of most UCR (uniform crime reporting) crimes,” Moore said. “I would like to request two additional patrol officers and an additional CID investigator for the department.”

News Herald Photo by Brenda Allums