Call 911 for fire, police and rescue. If you use your home phone, they will know where you are calling from. Just ask for help.
If you are reporting a lost hiker, call 911 and ask for DEC Forest Rangers or directly call DECs dispatch number: 518-408-5850.
The Keene Fire Department and the Keene Valley Fire Department are all-volunteer and both departments are searching for new members. Here is an application for KVFD.
The Keene Fire Department station was destroyed in the flood in August 2011. Plans are underway to rebuild at a new location and they hope to break ground in the Spring of 2012. In the meantime, the trucks and gear are spread around Keene. The offices above Mountain Health are their temporary headquarters.
There are two Departments to enable local reponders to get to a scene as fast as possible. If the problem is, for example, at the Ausable Club and the only fire department was in Keene, the response time could be quite long. Some volunteers would have to drive to Keene to get a truck, for example, then drive to the Ausable Club. And vice-versa. Route 9N to Elizabethtown divides the two Fire Districts: to the north is Keene and to the south is Keene Valley.
The Fire Departments are managed as 2 districts and, like the 2 water districts, taxpayers in their respective districts pay for their fire station, but not the other one. Each District has a group of Fire Commissioners, who are elected (I'm not sure when or how) and they set the Department's budget. The departments experience more ambulance calls than fire calls. Keeping enough trained EMTs is very difficult. Whoever you are, if you have an interest in serving, especially as an EMT, please call the department.
Police respond to 911 as well. Our Town is covered by the State Police Troop B in Ray Brook. They can be reached at: 518-897-2000.
The Essex County Sheriff's Office has some role too. The Sheriff is a county job mostly focused on enforcement of civil court processes but you see them doing traffic stops and road blocks as well. For example, divorce papers or an auto repossession might bring the sheriff to your door. But the Sheriffs big budget item is running the new jail. It was recently finished and built to handle 120 inmates but it typically only has about 70; look here at their monthly report. NYS prison populations peaked in 1999 and the State is closing prisons. The County was ordered to build a new prison, but it appears somehow they built one way to large. Here are press releases about arrests and crime in the county (not a lot).
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