RALEIGH - Wake's 19 rural fire districts are pushing for steep increases to the county's fire tax to support hiring more full-time firefighters their chiefs say are critical for the safety of citizens and firefighters.

The Wake County Fire Commission, which is responsible for providing fire service to unincorporated areas of the county and some small municipalities, voted unanimously last week to ask commissioner to boost the fire tax 31 percent next year and 73 percent by 2015.

Three fire chiefs met with Wake commissioners Monday to present a plan that would ensure that at least four paid, full-time firefighters are on duty 24-hours a day in each of the 19 rural districts, some of which include more than one fire station.

The increases are needed, fire chiefs say, to cut the time it takes for four firefighters and their equipment to reach the scene of a fire following a call for help. But the changing face of Wake County is also a factor.

As Wake becomes more developed, the formerly all-volunteer rural fire departments increasingly rely on full-time, paid staffs to maintain the needed level of readiness, their chiefs said. In the past 10 years, the ranks of volunteers at Wake fire districts have shrunk 24 percent -- a symptom of once-rural communities becoming more urban and transient.

"Each day we operate short-staffed, we increase our risk of firefighter, line-of-duty deaths," said Fairview Fire Chief Ed Brinson. "Wake County has been lucky, but our luck is running out."

The goal is to reach fires in suburban areas in seven minutes and rural areas within nine minutes. Currently, not one of the county's 19 non-urban departments is consistently meeting that goal.

The chiefs eventually want four firefighters on duty at all times at every station -- a staffing boost that would require hiring up to 218 full-time firefighters over the next three years.

"In our business, minutes count, whether it be saving someone's life, someone's property or a combination of both," said Apex Fire Chief Mark Haraway, who heads the commission's staffing committee. "Two men and a truck might be good for a moving company, but not for fighting fires."

The chiefs said a minimum of four firefighters is critical to meet state and federal safety requirements, which call for at least two firefighters stationed outside a burning structure if two go inside to search for people who need to be rescued.

The two outside are needed to warn and help the two inside if the fire approaches "flashover" -- intensifying to a point the rescuers inside might not make it out.

Brinson used a series of not-so-subtle slides to make his point -- a firefighter bailing out the window of a burning house, a flag-draped coffin and the daughter of a firefighter killed in Eastern North Carolina searching for his name on a memorial in a Raleigh park.

Nine North Carolina firefighters died in the line of duty in 2007, and five have died so far this year. Five Wake firefighters have died since 1905, the most recent in 2005.

County Manager David Cooke said Monday he agrees Wake needs more full-time firefighters, but he said taxpayers don't need to bear the full burden.

Cooke said millions in costs could be saved by closing fire stations now "embedded" in growing cities and consolidating rural fire districts, thereby saving money on administrative costs.

Cutting the number of full-time fire chiefs supervising small departments would be a logical place to start, Cooke said -- a suggestion not popular with a fire commission largely populated by rural fire chiefs.

And you don't need four men on every truck to ensure four firefighters arrive on scene, the manager said. Trucks from more than one station are routinely dispatched to the same fire.

"Consolidations, mergers need to be discussed." Cooke said. "That won't solve the issue completely, but it will free up some revenue to reinvest."