Jacksonville and 4 area counties announce Fire Watch program to extinguish veteran suicides

Fire Watch: To a military veteran, it means a sentry watching over a nighttime encampment to make sure that everybody is awoken if a fire breaks out, or more recently, to catch someone sneaking up on the soldiers.

But in a nation where about 22 veterans a day commit suicide, five Northeast Florida counties are joining forces in a new program with the same name: The Fire Watch. With an estimated 125,000 veterans in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties alone, program coordinator and Jacksonville City Councilman Rory Diamond said they hope to find ways to damp down the "completely and totally out of control" suicide rate.

"We have been waiting for years, waiting and waiting for Washington, D.C., to do something about veteran suicide and nothing is happening," said Diamond, also head of K9s for Warriors. "The crisis is getting worse. We are tired of waiting and we have decided to take immediate action right here in Northeast Florida to get something done and save our warriors' lives."

In the next few weeks, Jacksonville'sCity Council, along with the four other county commissions, will vote on bills to approve funding for each of their Fire Watch programs, then organize private as well as government veterans resources to combat suicide locally.

"What we want to do is a focused effort," Clay County Commissioner Gavin Rollins said. "We will take the data in the five-county area and specifically track where we are at so it is not one more program, but a focused effort to reduce veteran suicide."

"St. Johns County has 30,000 to 40,000 veterans," added St. Johns County Commissioner Jeremiah Blocker. "I am a combat veteran myself and we understand what it means."

The number of veteran suicide deaths per year nationally increased from 5,787 in 2005 to 6,139 in 2017, according to the recently released 2019 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report. The number of veteran suicides has been above 6,000 since 2008 and increased by 129 from 2016 to 2017.

In Florida in 2017, 512 veterans committed suicide, 482 of them men and almost 71 percent committed with guns, according to the report. That same year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tallied 6,139 veterans suicides nationwide.

Diamond announced Fire Watch at Jacksonville'sCity Hall, joined by commissioners from the other counties as well as supporters. Through inter-local agreements, the counties and Jacksonville will begin working soon to establish partnerships and collaborations between local, state and federal agencies who work with veterans, as well as nonprofit agencies. Those new programs will be aimed at supporting local veterans with one-on-one counseling as well as local telephone help lines.

That personal touch means a better chance to recognize when life becomes burdensome for the veteran, even getting help for them before a crisis occurs, Diamond said. That means setting up a network of 10,000 local veterans, clergy and experts to become their "brothers and sisters" and give support to those who need it, Diamond said.

"There's three days before a veteran may attempt suicide, and we need to focus our efforts on those three days to make sure we are organized and all of our veteran suicide efforts are personal, local, immediate and well-known," Diamond said. "We need to work on those things that shift the veteran toward crisis. We need to keep them out of crisis. ... We need to essentially create a support system around each and every veteran."

Each county will appoint local leaders and veterans to oversee their Fire Watch programs. The ultimate aim when Fire Watch begins in early 2020 is a website and phone app in each county that lets veterans with a problem contact a volunteer who they can establish a relationship with, organizers said. K9s for Warriors, which provides service dogs to veterans with medical issues or for support, will provide services for The Fire Watch for free, organizers said.

Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549

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