“I had visions when I walked in here,” Roberge said. “I couldn’t seem to get it off my mind. I had many sleepless nights thinking about it, planning it and putting it all together. You can’t always explain why you fall in love with a building, but you do.”

Since purchasing the property from the city for roughly $50,000 in February 2015, Roberge and his team at RR & Company have been actively redeveloping the former fire house, which was built in 1925.

The completed product is a two-story building with a 2,000-square-foot second-floor apartment that will be available for rent June 1. The first story will hold an office space, which will act as the permanent base of operations for Roberge’s company.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno lauded Roberge for his ingenuity and willingness to devote his time and resources the city.

He added that there’s also some landscaping and paving left to do and the weather will need to cooperate in order for them to complete the job. Money was available in the special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) fund to build, and an estimated $950,000 has been spent so far.

About three years ago, issues arose with the old station in Mitchell County when owners of the property wanted the area vacated.

In addition to E-911 director, Johnson is also the county liaison between the Mitchell County Commission and the volunteer firefighters, including the Baconton Volunteer Fire Department. He acted as the primary overseer of the project and, over the last year, worked to find a site, get bids in and get construction going. He said adhering to deadlines helped the process go smoothly and it will, in turn, benefit the community financially.

The new location will be able to retain its Insurance Service Office (ISO) 3 rating. The rating is on a scale of 1-10, with 1 the best rating. The lower ISO number, the lower the insurance premium is. Johnson said the rating helps the community not just save money on buildings their tax dollars support, but on residential property and such as well.

"Knowing that we don't have water supply out there, we'll have the Tankers in a position to be beneficial for the initial call."

According to Lubbock Fire Rescue the fire code recommends a maximum of 1,000 feet between hydrants. In some parts of Lubbock reaching out of the City limits fire hydrants can be scarce in areas near Idalou road or fields across North East Lubbock.

LFR said they are prepared in tackling areas without hydrants by using their equipment like a Tanker or Brush truck to fight blazes with a reliable water supply.

"A lot of times those grass fires occur off road and those brush trucks are designed to go off road," said Chief Holland.

Another tactic they use is relay pumping, which uses the fire hose to pump water between engines every 1,000 feet.

"Well, it was it was a long time ago, but I did it. It was always a lot of fun. And one of the real fun things about the work, you know here in downtown Wichita, this is a fire station that makes a lot of calls, and many calls would happen during the evening. In fact, it doesn't happen all the time, but here at the Fire Station Number One not long ago, there was a shift [during] which the firefighters made 31 calls during their 24-hour period. And as you might imagine, many of those were during the evening hours and into the night, so with a busy place like this, me, being a young firefighter all charged up and ready to go, I loved it dearly and still love the work today."

"Well, the primary training was someone showing you what should happen. There is a technique associated with it, you know. You want to wrap your arms and your legs around the pole. It's about a 20-foot drop.

"Someone would watch. And then you do it again. And again. And again, until the supervisors and other firefighters were satisfied that you could safely negotiate the pole and learn to get out of here quickly."

At the height of production in late 1942 to 1943, the Willow Run plant employed more than 42,000 workers in two shifts, and produced a finished bomber every hour. At the time, the mile-long assembly line and 3.5-million-square-foot factory were the world's largest.

"This station and this district represents the area around the Willow Run plant, and in my mind, we want to recognize and pay homage to that history," Chief Eric Copeland said. "Let's try to remember that heritage, what happened around here, and honor it and respect it with the graphics on our engine."

The department retired a largely unused 1990 reserve fire engine and its 1999 rescue truck that isn't used for fighting fires but responds to interstate traffic accidents, water rescue calls, routine medical calls, and carries "the jaws of life" and other auto accident extraction equipment.

The new truck will have enough storage to carry all the equipment now on the rescue truck as well as hoses, ladders, a 750-gallon tank, extra casing equipment, a thermal imaging camera, forcible entry tools and other frontline firefighting equipment.