On Thursday, several Taylor County volunteer fire departments were at the county courthouse asking for money to fight fires.

All together 13 departments were requesting just under $200,000 in funding for this next fire season.

There was no decision on whether they'll get that much, and commissioners had some requests of their own.

"They've got questions, they're managers of the county dollars and they need to ask questions," said Ecca Volunteer Fire Chief Gary Young.

Young spoke on behalf of 13 departments requesting that money.

He said a busy fire season last year forced some of them to retire old and aging equipment.

The county's response: are you applying for grants?

Commissioner Stan Egger implored departments to get money where they can.

Jim Ned's Volunteer Department said it received money for equipment from the Community Foundation of Abilene, according to volunteer Bob Eisenberg.

While that process wasn't hard, he said most other grants aren't easy to get especially from organizations outside of the area.

"They want to know a lot of information, at times you don't know exactly what they're asking you," Eisenberg said.

"There's only so much that you can do with what we have. Any lesser amount does eventually, when it hits the bottom line, it leads to reduced services," Young said.

Young added that he was hopeful the county will properly fund its volunteer departments

In 2011, volunteer departments received just over $162,000 in funding.