Firefighters at Fayette County station one in north Fayette continue to live and work in the shadow of an earthen dam as county officials work to get them moved to a new location.

An application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a $580,000 grant to build a new fire station in a safer location has been turned down twice, Jack Krakeel, director of the county department of fire and emergency services, said this week. And if the county can't get the federal funding, other building programs will have to suffer so the dangerous situation can be resolved, he added.

Local officials are pushing the application up the ladder at FEMA.

"We're in our third appeal now," said Krakeel, adding that additional detail has been provided to FEMA officials "in hopes that it will render a determination with respect to our eligibility for funding."

The station is near the county line, on the west side of Ga. Highway 314, nestled into a line of trees that is at the base of the dam holding back Dixon Lake. A breach in the dam could wipe out $500,000 worth of fire fighting equipment and endanger the lives of firefighters, county officials say.

State Department of Natural Resources records list the dam as category one, a designation that indicates an immediate threat to life and property if a breach should occur, a spokesman said last summer when the county first applied for the funding.

Krakeel said this week that recent improvements to the dam have reduced, but not eliminated the danger.

Volunteers originally built the station on donated land to provide a rallying point for members of the county's all-volunteer fire department, but the department now has paid firefighters who live in the station, with volunteers providing additional help.

If Fayette's application to FEMA is successful, the county would have to pick up $145,000 of the cost, a 25 percent local match.

If the federal agency doesn't come through with funding, Fayette County will have to shift money in its fiscal year 2000 budget to pay for a new station, Krakeel said. That will slow the department's plans for other improvements to its stations.

Plans are to build a new station next to the South Fayette Water Treatment Plant, under construction on Antioch Road, and use that new building to replace the current Woolsey station.

"[Woolsey] station is very close to the county line," said Krakeel, adding that the new station would be more centrally situated in the area it has to cover. "A station [at the water plant] will provide a much better distribution of resources," he said.