Crews with the Tacoma Fire Department (TFD) responded to two fires in the city early Wednesday morning. One of the fires is located near the Tacoma Dome Station. Sound Transit said the emergency response is creating service delays on the T Line during the morning commute. The first fire crews responded to was a vacant building near the intersection of East 25th Street and East D Street around 1 a.
- PUB DATE: 3/8/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 Seattle

The Tacoma Fire Department has responded to 101 encampment-related fires so far in 2023. Fire officials said this is similar to what they saw with last year's trend. Firefighters responded to an encampment fire near the on-ramp onto I-5 from 26th Street Tuesday morning before 6:30 am. No one was injured.
- PUB DATE: 3/8/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KOMO-TV ABC 4 Seattle

First came the voter-approved merger of Port Ludlow Fire & Rescue into East Jefferson Fire Rescue that went into effect Jan. 1. The next step will be approving new commissioner districts in the merged Jefferson County Fire District No. 1 and following a process that will whittle the number of commissioners from 10 (five each from the two districts) to five.
- PUB DATE: 3/8/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Peninsula Daily News - Metered Site

A semi-truck caught fire after a wrong-way collision on I-5 near Joint Base Lewis-McChord's main gate on Tuesday afternoon. Backups were at least 6-miles each direction at rush hour. Troopers said a wrong-way vehicle collided with a semi, but there were no serious injuries. Backups were as long as 6-miles each direction Tuesday afternoon at rush hour.
- PUB DATE: 3/7/2023 9:30:56 PM - SOURCE: KCPQ-TV FOX 13 Tacoma

The Wichita West (TX) Volunteer Fire Department made the following announcement Monday on Facebook:

NEW STATION COMING SOON (it’s a long read, but promise it’s worth it) :

It’s no secret we’ve been growing, both in membership and our fleet. In the last year and a half, we’ve added 3 apparatuses which were all donated to us, and a new frontline engine on the way. These apparatuses will all need to fit in an area where we currently only have room for 2.

We are extremely fortunate enough to have maintained steady membership growth, and have outgrown our current training room. We’d also like to host outside departments on training nights, in order to have a more cohesive flow on scenes.

With the highway expansion still looming, and making the apron in front of the station unsafe for our firefighters to pull the trucks out on when responding to emergencies, making room in the bays for training, or when we do in house maintenance, clearly a change was needed.

A couple donors who wish to remain anonymous, approached us with an amazing opportunity. Approximately 6 acres of land and $600,000 was offered to us to start construction on a new station at 7952 Seymour Hwy, just west of the ServiceMaster location.

While this will certainly get us a great start on a new station, anything over the $600,000 will need to be paid for by the department. At this time, our goal is to raise an additional $150,000. We will be asking the community to assist us in reaching that goal.

Several remodeling options to our current station were looked at, each hitting several roadblocks and requiring additional work to land not owned by the fire department. This approach, we will be able to have room to grow, and have the option to expand the station far into the future should it be needed. Details of the building will be released in future posts as well.

This is a very exciting time for us and the community! We hope you’ll support us as you always have, to help us reach our goal and build this asset to the community.