By Staff
Cuts response times to western part of city
By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Washington’s new fire station became operational Tuesday.
Five firefighters from B Shift and Training Division Chief Jasper Hardison were the first Washington Fire-Rescue-EMS-Inspections Department personnel to man the station, which occurred about 7:30 a.m.
Jimmy Davis, chief of the department, and Operations Division Chief Mark Yates, met the B-Shift firefighters at the station. Davis conducted an orientation session to familiarize the firefighters with the station.
Ground for the new station, located at 2064 15th Street Extension, was broken March 26, 2007.
Davis said the new station provides benefits to his department, but it also provides benefits to city residents and property owners.
The new station in combination with the existing headquarters station means the city is better prepared to save lives and property, Davis said. With only the headquarters station available, response times to western areas of the city ranged from eight to nine minutes, the chief said.
When asked what he considered the new station’s best feature, Davis said that feature is its location, which translates into a reduction in response time.
Davis said the new station will provide another benefit.
Without the new station, the city could have expected its fire rating to go higher, meaning the city wasn’t providing the level of fire protection it should have been providing, Davis said.
After the state’s Department of Insurance evaluates what the addition of the new station means to the city’s fire-protection and fire-prevention efforts, the city could receive a lower fire rating. That likely would translate into lower fire-insurance premiums for property owners, Davis said.
Hardison, the training-division chief, is working out of the new station for a reason.
There’s more and better space at the new station for training purposes than at headquarters station, Hardison said. The new station also provides more room to store public-education materials, he said.
Hardison’s view of the new station’s best feature is different from Davis’ view.
Breaking in the new station were Lt. Gary Johnson, working his first day as a newly promoted lieutenant, engineer Robbie Taylor and firefighters/EMTs Doug Bissette, Bryan Lilley and Ashby Tippet. They spent part of the morning getting acclimated to the new station and deciding what duties and chores they would be responsible for performing, collectively and individually.
For details about the new station, including what it’s like to spend a 24-hour shift there, see Sunday’s Washington Daily News.