From left to right: Ronald Snell, Micheal Kemp, David White, Brent Stevens, and Colton Bass. [Photo by Richard Marion/Lake Okeechobee News]

LABELLE- The City of LaBelle Board of Commissioners honored members of the local fire department for their service at their Feb. 13 meeting. 

Commissioners each read a plaque that honored a specific firefighter for a call they responded to last year in which they went above and beyond and saved a life. Each firefighter was awarded a Life Saving Plaque. 

Firefighters recognized at the meeting included Ronald Snell, Micheal Kemp, David White, Brent Stevens, Matthew Coker, Zane Mungillo, and Colton Bass. 

Commissioners also received a presentation from Ian Womack of Fitch and Associates at their Feb. 13 meeting. Fitch and Associates performed a risk assessment on LaBelle’s fire department, analyzing data from calls including location and response time. 

According to data gathered by Fitch and Associates, response time to calls in LaBelle’s fire zone boundary was an average of 8 minutes and 48 seconds in 2023. A heatmap presented to the commission that illustrated where fire incidents occurred showed that most of the calls were in the city of LaBelle. 

Womack said the data showed that 98.49% of the time, the fire department had zero or only one call that it was responding to. Which means the likelihood of two or more concurrent incidents was only 1.51%. 

LaBelle just recently hired their first full time firefighters back in February of 2024.