Work to renovate and expand the Church Street station began in October after a warrant article to acquire a bond to fund the project was approved during the last town meeting.

The new building gives the department a bigger apparatus bay, upgraded electrical and HVAC systems, and a new second floor area that will hold trainings and serve as a back-up emergency operations center. The old hose tower will be turned into an elevator for the station. 

The steel frame was erected over the last few months and now work is being done to close off the structure. 

“If the weather behaves, we’ll be able to get the concrete poured on the floor for the new apparatus bay,” said Goffstown Fire Chief Richard O’Brien.

So far, everything has been on schedule and on budget.

“There’s no real big surprises,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said the daily operations at the station haven’t been affected by the construction. Crews are currently working out of a trailer and are still able to complete all their daily responsibilities.

At most, all they have to do is move their cars around, O’Brien said.

The primary problem with Engine 1 is a leaking pump, which the Selectboard expects to repair for between $3,500 and $4,000.

Leyden Selectboard Chairman Jeffrey Neipp said Galvis already has the pump removed and disassembled, having received the truck at his shop in mid-December. Neipp expects the truck will be back in service by the end of January, depending on the availability of parts.

“We need to get it fixed, that’s all there is to it,” said Leyden Fire Chief and Leyden Firefighters Association President Clifford Spatcher. With Engine 1 out of service, Leyden firefighters would need to respond to a fire with a tanker instead.

As for the recently purchased engine, Neipp said the Selectboard currently has no plans to put it in service, unless the association’s board of directors can present the Selectboard with a substantial argument for its use. Spatcher said the association — a recognized nonprofit that raises money to support the Leyden Volunteer Fire Department — will discuss its plans for the engine during its next meeting on Feb. 7, and return to the Selectboard with a response in late February or early March.

The association purchased the newer engine on Craigslist back in August with $3,900 of its own money, believing it would better fit the needs of the department. The 1983 engine would hold more firefighters, more equipment and more water than Engine 1. Spatcher said previously that the association intended to give the newer engine to the town.

Progress was suspended two years ago, and city and county officials are at a standstill, each side insisting it's waiting on the other. In addition, some city officials said they're worried they'd end up subsidizing the city next door.

But Broward fire chiefs, some city mayors and top county officials say it's time to get past obstacles and put in place the system that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2002.

"When you're having a cardiac episode or bleeding out on your kitchen floor, you don't care which city's patch is on the paramedic's uniform," Tamarac Mayor Harry Dressler said in an email.

"The sooner we get a competent professional to you, the better your chance of survival," he said. "Saving lives is what it's all about. Giving people a chance to live is what matters."

The closest-unit response system would be blind to the 31 municipal boundaries, focused instead on getting help to 911 callers in the fastest way possible. An ambulance in Davie could rescue an accident victim in Plantation. A fire truck in Oakland Park could rush to a blaze in Wilton Manors.

Neighboring cities would cross borders for serious medical or fire calls, like a heart attack, or a car accident, or a fire, but not for police work, like a burglary.

Live wires fell on a fire truck while firefighters battled a blaze at a house on Long Island, police said. Two firefighters were hurt. 

The firefighters were working to put out flames at a house on Arnold Avenue in West Babylon, the Suffolk County Police Department said. That's when the live wires fell on their truck.

One of the firefighters went to the hospital for an injured knee. The second was hurt but not hospitalized.