Twenty-two volunteer firefighters have been working nonstop since the station opened last week.

"Getting in and out of town here is a lot easier than having to drive out north or out west to the fire station and possibly have to backtrack to respond to the fire call," said Benth.

It's safe to say operations are a lot smoother at this station, which holds up to 11 fire trucks and provides other basic amenities.

"Exercise room, a day room as well, and three bedrooms when there's late night calls or when things get busy again like they did back in the last boom," said Benth.

The department is spending $1.2 million in 2012 and 2018 SPLOST funds for a new three-story tower that will have simulated residential floors, indoor and outdoor staircases, and a simulated elevator shaft.

It also will have more than ten times the space dedicated to burn exercises, all for better training that Moulton says could save lives.

In addition to providing for the emergency radio speakers and amplifier for Station No. 2, he said this system will provide a commercial station alerting system that will allow Station No. 2 to receive redundant emergency traffic from COS Dispatch over both 800 MHz emergency radio system and IP infrastructure providing redundancy in the event that one of these systems fail.

The new system will receive digital information from dispatch, displaying it on screens throughout the building along with an automated tone.