So far in 2026, emergency crews from the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky have responded to 20 requests for assistance from a volunteer fire department in neighboring McCracken County, DOE said Tuesday.
In 2025 the Paducah Site helped out on 115 requests from the West McCracken Fire Department under a mutual aid agreement that has been in place since 2019, DOE said in a press release.
The AtkinsRealis-led Mission Conversion Services Alliance (MCSA), the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office operations and support contractor, provides emergency services for the Paducah Site and coordinates DOE’s role in the mutual assistance agreement, according to the release.
The DOE site is able to provide the local volunteer fire department with backup for “firefighting, rescue and first-responder medical services,” according to the DOE release.
“We are experiencing a time when volunteer recruitment and retention are proving more difficult nationwide,” said Corey Howard, an MCSA employee who recently began serving as the new West McCracken chief. “Access to these additional resources and manpower is effectively helping us overcome that challenge,” Howard said in the DOE release.
“In addition to providing assistance to [West McCracken], it is beneficial in keeping fire services personnel sharp on skills such as structural firefighting, victim extrication from vehicle accidents, first-responder emergency medical care and brush firefighting,” Paducah Site Fire Chief and Fire Protection Program Manager Darrell Howard said in the release. “It is a win-win, no doubt.”