The boundaries of the Central Lamar Fire Protection District, which includes much of west Hattiesburg and Sumrall, have been reconfigured to include a portion of Lamar County that had previously been left out of the district – a move that is expected to lower insurance rates for residents in that area.
The decision was made at a recent meeting of the Lamar County Board of Supervisors, when board members voted unanimously to add the missing parcel to the northwestern portion of the district, near the Magnolia Crossing and Westbrook subdivisions in Sumrall. The decision went into effect Oct. 18.
“There was a part in the northwestern area of the fire district that, way back when the districts were formed, had been inadvertently left out of the district,” Lamar County Administrator Jody Waits said. “We had residents reaching out to us because insurance rates were high, and we looked into it and saw that they had been left out of the district, which was inadvertent.”
Waits said there were also residents near Benedict Day School who are just across the street from the Central Lamar Fire Station, but were in the Sumrall fire rating district.
“Then also, there’s a new development over there called Frontier that was also in the Sumrall rating district, but was actually exceeded five miles from the Sumrall fire station and was in reach of the central station,” he said. “So in looking at that, and meeting with everybody, we determined it’d be best to extend Central to include those areas to give those areas a better fire rating.”
The Central Lamar Fire Protection District covers subdivisions such as Bellegrass, Lake Serene North, Canebrake and Bridgefield. It runs north to Epley Trace and Frontier Bend in Sumrall, west to Shelby Road and south to Bounds and Pine Hill roads.
