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This bungalow on Shelton Shop Road will serve as a new Stafford fire station, helping ease local insurance rates. |
Stafford's newest firehouse is, in fact, a house.
For at least the next seven months, a modest Craftsman at 53 Shelton Shop Road will be the home-away-from-home for a four-man crew of career firefighters.
Barring any last-minute snags, Station 14 will be open for business by 7 this morning. It will provide 24-hour service to an area that is in need of better coverage.
It might seem like a quaint move that hearkens back to the days when upstart rural fire departments might have actually operated out of a house or a barn, but it wasn't exactly planned to happen this way.
A recent rating by the Insurance Services Office found that coverage in the northwest corner of the county was inadequate--a situation that could raise insurance premiums for houses and businesses in the area.
Fire Chief Rob Brown had $60,000 to solve the problem--not enough to hire new firefighters. County officials scrambled to find a solution that could be implemented quickly at minimum cost. Brown was forced to scour the local rental market.
"We're very happy with the location," he said. "We had to look for rapid solutions, and we're fortunate that this property was available."
The new Station 14 will support the Rock Hill station farther west, improving the ISO rating for that part of the county.
The location might not be perfect, but it's close. For $3,000 a month, Stafford gets a station just off of Garrisonville Road that abuts North Stafford High School, a water tower, and a communications tower. It remains to be seen how the neighbors will react.
"The location is very good," fire Lt. Mark Stone said. "There was definitely a need for the county to have a station here. It gets a unit much closer to a lot of the calls we're running, and we hope it can reduce response times."
In less than three weeks, the fire department found a location, furnished it, installed the necessary communications equipment and built a garage for the engine. It was a group effort.
"We wouldn't have met our budget without donated labor from other county departments," Brown said.
To guarantee 24-hour coverage at the new station, Brown moved a full-time engine company from the Mountain View station. To make up for the loss, a paramedic unit will be shifted from Rock Hill to Mountain View. The new station will provide both fire and advanced life-support service to Rock Hill and the immediate area.
"It's exciting that we're accomplishing the goal," Brown said. "But it's disheartening to move personnel out of an existing fire station that has been so open and welcoming to our career crew. It's not the best-case scenario, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances."
ISO officials will evaluate the station today to make sure it meets their needs for an improved rating. Brown has been following their lead on the new station, and has no reason to believe it won't satisfy them.
"I've worked in worse places," Brown said of the two-bedroom bungalow. "It's a facility that gets us where we need to be."
Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com
