The Flint Fire Department began staffing Station 8 on Sunday, Aug. 27, manning it with four-person crews working 24-hour shifts. Those crews serve as first responders for fires and medical emergencies in Flint south of Interstate 69 and Lippincott Boulevard.
A staffing shortfall forced the Flint Fire Department to shutter Station 8 in 2014. Afterward, crews from Station 1, in downtown Flint, took up the slack, with other stations responding as necessary.
With Station 8 back online, the department hopes to shave minutes off of response times in South Flint, said Sgt. Brody Dietzel, who was overseeing the station on Tuesday. "The response time is going to be drastically cut," he said. "Station One was getting ran to pieces."