PALM BAY, Fla. – When every second counts, one of Central Florida’s largest communities was dangerously falling behind.
With an explosion of recent growth, Palm Bay was challenged with getting to emergency calls with enough time left to save homes and lives.
But Tuesday, after more than a year-and-a-half of construction, the city opened a brand-new fire station in one of those growing areas that needs more protection.
Your Palm Bay Community Correspondent James Sparvero went to the grand opening ceremony for the new station on Palm Bay Road.
With the ceremonial uncoupling of a fire hose and the swearing in of a new fire house dog, Palm Bay opened just its seventh fire station in a city of more than 150,000 people.
Assistant Fire Chief John Ringleb said the new station makes residents much safer.
As population grew fast and response times slowed down in recent years, the city said sometimes it was taking up to 20 minutes to get firefighters to your neighborhood.
“It helps tremendously,” Ringleb talked about how the new station will impact response times. “The city is growing on all of our borders. It does give us an opportunity to respond to those areas a lot faster than coming from a further distance.”
Sparvero then got to see the state-of-the-art features of the fire station Ringleb told him about like carcinogen protections, new workout equipment, and a stainless-steel kitchen.
“A lot of living quarters for people to have some down time and new trucks,” Ringleb said. “We’ve got new personnel coming in here.”
And the city’s not done planning new fire stations.
Ringleb said Palm Bay wants a total of 14 stations as development continues into the future.
A temporary, modular-style fire station was put in place for the time being to serve new homes in south Palm Bay along the St. Johns Heritage Parkway.