Socorro On Its Way To Creating Paid Fire Department

The city of Socorro is one step closer to creating its own paid fire department.

Socorro currently has a volunteer fire department, but city leaders passed a measure Thursday to draft a job description for a new, paid fire chief position.

“People are in favor of it,” Mayor Trini Lopez told ABC-7. “For years and years, we have had several incidents where mobile homes and some houses have been burned. Most of the time, people come and ask me, ‘When are you going to do something about this?'”

Lopez said he wants to negotiate with and include the volunteer firefighters in the new department once it is set up. He said it is too early to know when the paid fire department might be established. He said Thursday night’s council decision was only the beginning of a long process.

Asked how much it would cost to create a new paid fire department, Lopez said council had not even gotten to that part of the discussion. He added that Socorro residents are already paying property taxes that go toward emergency services and that the city would look into ways of rerouting those tax funds into the new department.