SAN JUAN COUNTY, N.M. — San Juan County is making sure people in the Four Corners get the best service out of their responders.

“We went from 10 districts under just to one fire department now with 28 stations,” said San Juan County Fire Chief Shay Arunhammer.

The San Juan County Fire and Rescue Department is making some changes. It’s now combined into one consolidate district.

Officials made the decision Feb. 1 because there has been a drop in volunteers, and they don’t want the ones they do have to burn out.

“This has been in the works for kind of a while just kind of behind the scenes, they’re trying to figure out what’s going to be best for the community in the long run, and by combining all of the districts this was going to be what was best,” said Aurnhammer.

This will provide the community with enough first responder to answer any emergency call that may come through at any time.

“Now that we’ve combined districts and some of the response areas, we’re able to pull from a bigger pool of people that can essentially just help out their neighboring district,” Aurnhammer said.

But that’s not all, since SJFD is now seen as a whole, this affects insurance ratings. Meaning better scores and lower insurance costs for the community. 

“Additionally, this is going to help with what we call an ISO point. It will drop the ISO point a little bit lower. Meaning that homeowners will have lower insurance to pay,” said Aurnhammer.