New fire stations are in the works
Fire chief says $6.9M project will improve response times across city; 3 sites affected
Planning is under way for crews at three of Texarkana, Texas, Fire Department’s five stations to move into newly built, strategically placed buildings next year.
The move will improve response times and provide opportunity for needed upgrades, TTFD Chief Eric Schlotter said.
Specific sites for the new buildings have not been pinned down, but TTFD knows generally where it wants them.
Station One, or Central Fire Station, now at 524 W. Third St., will be farther north in downtown. Station Three, now at 5706 Richmond Road, will be west and
south of its current spot. And Station Four, now at 4315 Summerhill Road, will remain close to Summerhill, but north of Interstate 30.
Shifting the stations’ positions will decrease response times to certain parts of the city, especially the quickly expanding development north of Interstate 30, Schlotter said.
The department’s goal is to reach fires within four minutes, and its average response time is about 20 seconds over that. But for pockets of the city such as the eastern and western reaches of the area north of I-30, response times climb to as high as six minutes.
Placing another fire station north of the interstate should solve that problem, Schlotter said, adding that it will also improve all-important secondary unit response times.
“Anytime we have a fire, the first unit there starts the operation, but it’s really when we get all of our forces there that we really become effective. … We also have other crews, like the second unit establishes the water supply, and the third unit has set tasks. So when we go to a fire, it’s really about how fast you can get everybody there.
“Right now, if we have a fire north of the interstate, all the secondary units are coming from south of the interstate, and it’s hard to get across I-30 in a fire truck. So having another unit north will allow us to get deeper into our operation faster for fires,” he said.
New construction will give TTFD the chance to better accommodate equipment it has added over the years, now often housed in improvised spaces that are less than ideal.
“For example, one of our stations that handles air pack maintenance, which is our breathing apparatus, we had to build an outbuilding into the engine bay post-construction. And it’s tiny, it’s too small; it was never purpose-built. It was just, ‘Here’s a little space. Let’s build a little room there and stick it in there.’ Now with the new stations, we will have in the facility a purpose-built section just for that thing,” Schlotter said.
Another example is the department’s hazardous materials response trailer, now kept under a lean-to outdoors. It will have its own indoor bay space in one of the new station houses.
The new Central Fire Station will house a state-of-the art emergency operations center from which officials would run the city in a disaster. Central Station will also be home to TTFD administration offices now in City Hall.
Firefighters will see upgrades such as individual bedrooms rather than dorm-style housing.
“That’s the trend in the fire service, moving toward that. It’s just more privacy and not really a big difference in cost, either. If you can imagine, everybody’s got great stories of some coworker that snored terribly and you couldn’t go to sleep because it was so loud,” Schlotter said.
More importantly, which residents they serve will change.
“The demographics of the stations are going to change significantly. Right now, Station Four on Summerhill Road is our busiest station. When we relocate, Central Station will become the busiest station in the city, at least initially, until calls change over years. Right now, they’re second or third each year. So that will be the change that they (firefighters) will really see the most. Their call volumes are going to change, and their districts are going to change,” Schlotter said.
The Texas-side City Council on Monday approved spending more than $540,000 for the design of the new stations, and the city will take bids from architects this summer, Deputy City Manager Kyle Dooley said. He and Schlotter plan to attend a fire station design conference in Fort Worth, Texas, this week.
The city expects construction of the three new stations to begin next spring at a cost of about $6.9 million. The project is part of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, a schedule of more than 50 infrastructure upgrades scheduled through 2044 to be funded by debt including municipal bonds.
Moving three fire crews into new station houses will be less expensive than adding a station, which is TTFD’s only other option to improve service, Schlotter said.
“It’s actually cheaper to move three existing fire stations and realign them to meet the needs of the city, versus adding a sixth station, because building fire stations is a one-time cost, whereas adding a new station, you’d have to have equipment … (and) personnel, which would be a recurring cost,” he said.
What will happen to the station houses left behind is still in the planning stage, Dooley said.
A representative of the local firefighters’ union chapter declined to comment on the new station houses. TTFD firefighters recently chose the union to represent them in collective bargaining talks with the city.
On Twitter: @RealKarlRichter