The last time Apopka built a fire station, fewer than 20,000 people lived in Orange County's second-largest city and no toll roads led into the bedroom community. That was 1997. Apopka is now home to nearly 50,000 residents who commute on three high-speed highways, but the city is still covered by just four fire stations.
The city plans to break ground on a new firehouse — one of two in the works — to reduce the time it takes firefighters and paramedics to get to emergency calls on toll roads ringing the city and to areas in the city’s farthest northwest and southwestern reaches, where the population is booming.