From the Desk of Chief Steve Kelley:

First and foremost, what an honor and privilege I have to be not only associated with but be the Chief of such a wonderful group of individuals. I have been the 4th chief since our department was organized. I have had the pleasure to know each of the previous Chiefs and served under each of them as a member and officer of North Canton Fire Department.

We have one of the largest volunteer departments in Western North Carolina with a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and age ranges. We cover 10 miles of Interstate 40 where most of our calls come from during the year along with emergency medical calls. We run basic life support calls for medical. We invested in a drone program a few years back and with that we have 6 pilots each with their individual small drones and one dual image including thermal larger drone with remote command capabilities.

Our department has multiple mutual-aid departments where we both give and receive help from across both Haywood and Buncombe counties as first and second alarm responses. We are continuing to invest in upgrading our equipment, including the purchase of a second UTV, multiple tri-band radios, and the most up-to-date firefighting gear possible. We also proudly hold an ISO 4 rating from our last inspection district wide both with hydrants and without. You will find that our department thinks outside of the box and it might not work for everyone, but it works for us and the proof is in the numbers we have and that we send to calls. My ongoing joke is call with a problem I can send an army to fix it!