According to Fire Chief Peter Shedd, the station is extremely overcrowded. It houses four vehicles, with no room for the department's three equipment trailers, which are stored outside, and little office space.

To remedy the situation, residents voted to conduct a feasibility study on the station during a special town meeting in September, and a Fire Station Expansion Committee was formed to oversee the study's findings.

Since then, the seven-member committee has held several meetings with Stevens & Associates' architects. During an Oct. 25 meeting, Jon Saccoccio and Cory Frehsee of Stevens & Associates presented the committee with four possible blueprints for a new fire station, in preparation for the public forum.

Saccoccio added that the forum will be an opportunity to present residents with the pros and cons of their possible designs.

"I really suspect that we'll pull a lot of ideas together," he said.

The stream that runs on the westernmost side of the property is one of the biggest restraints architects identified, Saccoccio said, though they're also considering rerouting the stream to maximize space. Firefighters conveyed they'd like to have overhead doors on the new building's opposite sides, giving them the ability to drive out in both directions, and indicated 25 parking spaces to accommodate the entire staff would be ideal.

The new, two-story, 17,560-square-foot station has five bays and stands on the southeast corner of Jackson Street and Racetrack Road. The $3.4 million project is being developed by Lord & Son Construction of Fort Walton Beach. The namesake of the company is not related to Ocean City-Wright Fire Chief Billy Lord, Johnston said.

Nonetheless, firefighters and other employees are "packed in like sardines right now," said Johnston, who served as a fire fighter for 37 years. "We ran out of room a long time ago. To bring it up to ADA-compliance would cost more than it's worth, and we wanted our own training facility."

Other benefits of the new facility include its access and exit points for fire trucks and other vehicles, he said. Getting to and leaving the structure will be much easier and safer in comparison to the setup at the original station, Johnston said.

He said all of the fire department's fire fighters gave input on the new structure, the first floor of which includes eight bunk rooms, a fitness room, showers and a day room. The second floor includes offices for the fire chief and other administrators, and also a conference room where the fire commissioners will conduct their monthly meetings.

Flanagan said the town has $200,000 in a fund for a building analysis that could lead to a larger, more extensive study of the structure. He said that depending on what the initial analysis says, he will go to Town Meeting in the spring with a proposal to design either a brand-new building at the site or to renovate the existing one.

Those pieces include the possible purchase of two adjacent parcels of land totaling about 6,000 square feet. Town Meeting in 2014 approved spending $200,000 to buy the land. That approval was never acted upon.

At past town meetings, Flanagan said, $200,000 had also been approved for a feasibility study of the existing structure, which is the money he wants to use for the pending architectural analysis.

"Phase 1 is the feasibility study," he said. "Is the building capable of being renovated versus being rebuilt?"

Once the initial study is done, he said, he will go to Town Meeting next spring to seek an additional $300,000 for schematic designs of either a new building or a renovated one.

When Lebanon became Apple Valley in 1967, those first firefighters shared 16 black rubber fire coats, pull-up rubber boots, rubber gloves, and plastic helmets. The fire station was not much more than a large garage stall in the existing town hall. There was only one fire truck, a General Safety Equipment 1966 Ford pumper. Two firefighters sat in the cab and the rest of the crew rode on the tailboard. Fire calls were made through a multi-ring telephone system, there was one stationary siren in town, and less than 22 calls for fire response were made that first year.

Today, Apple Valley is home to three fire stations. There are 24 firefighters assigned to each station, three assistant chiefs, one fire marshal, a fire inspector, and a full-time fire chief, according to city officials.