Amiallana Justus
On Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 10:00 a.m., Community members of Seminole County came out to show their support for the opening of Fire Station 39 located in the Paola/Heathrow area.
Due to community growth in Seminole County, the Seminole County Fire Department partnered with the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners and County Management to open Fire Station 39.
The new fire station will help improve response times in the area, alleviates call volume at nearby stations, and strengthen mutual aid partnerships with other fire departments that are nearby.
Fire Station 39 is modeled after the prototypes of Fire Station 29 on Aloma Avenue, happened in late 2018, and Fire Station 11 in Altamonte that opened in 2023.
The mission of Seminole County Fire Department is the protection of human life and property with appropriate response times through highly trained professionals.
The organizational values with the Seminole County Fire Department are “Selflessness” through “Duty, Consistency of Service, Fairness and Equity, and Dedication to Community.”
The purpose of Fire Station 39 is to protect the community and enhance life for citizens through high quality emergency services. This goal will be achieved through a department that delivers their promises of being attentive to keeping the public safe.
Steps to Keep Citizens Safe
Fire stations are an important part of keeping communities safe from dangerous situations. The building of Fire Station 39 allows for firefighters to respond to response times quicker.
“The overgrowth that we have in the Seminole County population has decreased our response times and the increasing pause on the subsequent stations like 34 and 36,” said Gregory Harlow, Seminole County Fire Department assistant chief of EMS. “The opening of 39 has shown a difference in running calls and that they pick up and relieve you from other stations.”
Being a firefighter is a stressful job, especially if there isn’t enough time to help everyone. Opening Fire Station 39 gives the community in Seminole County a higher chance of survival in serious situations.
“Fire Station 39 directly impacts about 11,000 residents and there are 4100 homes in the area that this station immediately affects,” said Harlow. “We are reducing response times and bringing more relief to provide better services for the residents up here in Seminole County.”
Dave Williams, public information officer at Fire Station 39, said the community growth in Seminole county has been a positive development.
“We always love seeing the community grow, especially right here in our backyard,” said Williams. Seeing our community thrive and infrastructure build is amazing, but there’s a lot coming in that makes it harder to keep up with emergency services.”
Traffic build up due to increase in community has made the goal of a 5-minute response time harder for fire stations. Fire Station 39 is expected to decrease traffic and lower the response time for residents.
“We do see an increase in traffic and for us specifically in the fire department, we see an increase in call load,” said Williams. “Station 34 which is a 46 and I4, predominantly serve most of this area that Station 39 covers. They’ve had a 54% higher call load in the past couple of years which means longer response times, and we don’t want that for our residents.”
“Station 39 in particular is stationed with a boat, wood truck, hazmat unit, and aerial truck and it’s almost an all-hazard station,” said Williams. “No matter what your emergency here is in northwestern Seminole County, this station can do it all.”
The opening of Station 39 is not just about having another fire station available but keeping the growing population safe and secure without any risks to citizens.
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