MOULTRIE — The Moultrie Fire Department will now charge for some of its services when it’s called outside the city limits.

A vote by the Moultrie City Council on Tuesday cleared the way for the fire department to charge insurance companies — not individuals — when firefighters are called to wrecks outside the city.

City Manager Pete Dillard said city firefighters are called to assist with automobile accidents outside the city limits about twice a month. Primarily it’s to use extrication tools to get motorists out of their damaged vehicles.

“The expense of the equipment and training to do extrication is considerable,” Dillard said. “This won’t cover it, but it will offset part of it.”

While Dillard didn’t say how much the charge would be, he did say there were some limits:

— The fire department can charge only insurance companies, not the drivers themselves, even if they don’t have insurance.

— The fire department cannot charge for wrecks within the city limits because city taxpayers fund the department.

— Likewise, the department cannot charge the insurance companies of city residents, even if they have an accident outside the city limits. The reason, again, is that those residents’ taxes fund the fire department to begin with.

— The fire department is not expected to bill for other fire services outside the city limits, such as responding to a structure fire, because those incidents would be governed by mutual aid agreements between the City of Moultrie and other firefighting agencies.

The city council’s vote follows a move by the county Volunteer Fire Association to similarly bill insurance companies for their services. The VFA proposed billing for its services in February of last year and implemented it in August. Since then, the association had billed for about two dozen calls, VFA President Dustin Hart told Colquitt County Commissioners Feb. 4.