Surgoinsville Volunteer Fire Department

Surgoinsville Fire Department (SFD) is one of nine all volunteer fire departments in Hawkins County; located in Northeast Tennessee, extending South from the Virginia state line. The county is divided into two, almost equal sections, by the Holston River which transverses the county's entire length.

---

One of the largest counties in the state, the 480 square miles of Hawkins County ranges from flat valleys dotted with farms and pastureland to the high mountain ranges of the Appalachians. Hawkins County is sixty miles northeast of Knoxville and fifty miles southwest of Bristol. Hawkins County is a rural-agricultural county with a population of 56,425.

SFD provides structural fire suppression, rescue services, hazardous materials response, wildland fire suppression and fire prevention services in a six square mile area for 1,861 residents and the tourists that pass through our town. The department provides this protection with twelve dedicated volunteer firefighters with two engines, 1 tanker/tender, 1 mini-pumper and 1 utility truck out of 2 stations.

The median age in Hawkins County is 35.4 years with more than 25% of the population under the age of five or over the age of 60 years. Within our service area are more than 670 homes and thirty businesses. Included in our service area is a major railroad, a major highway artery, a small industrial park, an elementary school, and middle school with over four hundred students each, and five miles of shoreline with one TWRA access site to go along with several private water access sites.

Important infrastructures within SFDs service area that provide service to our community are two schools, an airport, the municipal town hall, one large electrical sub-station for Holston Electric Cooperative, the Norfolk Southern and CSX Railways, which transport various commodities through Hawkins County, throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia that more than a quarter million people and thousands of businesses in our service area.

We provide automatic aide to Carters Valley Volunteer Fire Department which has the largest coverage area in the county. We provide mutual aid to the other eleven departments in the county. SFD has been called for regional mutual aid four times in the past years. SFD also has the chance to respond, if requested, to Holston Army Ammunition Plant and a TVA steam plant.