The city of Newnan held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for the new fire training facility at 473 Greison Trail, the department said in a news release.

Fire Chief Stephen Brown remarked, “We appreciate the support of the City Council and the citizens through SPLOST as we take this important step in upgrading our department’s training facility. Our new facility will include a four-story burn building, training tower, classroom, driving course, and drafting pit. It will ensure we are able to continue upholding the highest standards of training as we serve our community.”

Voters initially approved allocating $1.75 million for an upgraded fire training facility, times-herald.com reported. In May 2022, Newnan City Council members approved increasing the budget for the project to $3.8 million, the report said.

The Blanche and Taft communities will be getting a new fire station thanks, in part, to the Lincoln County school board donating one and a half acres of the Blanche School property for its new location, elkvalleytimes.com reported.

Preliminary figures of $200,000 would build the fire station with four bays and between two and four sleeping rooms, a fire official said, according to the report.

The new facility will be located on the southeast corner of Highway 110 and Luther Road.

The Blanche Volunteer Fire Station has a pumper truck and a small rescue truck, which houses medical supplies and extraction equipment, the report said.

The Blanche Fire Department began with a 1977 Ford truck donated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in June of 1977, according to the department’s website. It was housed in a county-owned building. Since that time, the county has added a new metal building for a substation in Taft.

The Huttig Fire Department recently added an aerial truck to its fleet in a first for the city, eldoradonews.com reported.

The truck will be in service within the next month, a fire official said, joining the department’s three pumper trucks, tanker truck, brush truck, ambulance, service trailer and emergency medical side-by-side, the report said.

It’s not the biggest truck in terms of water pumping capacity, but the fire official said it will expand the department’s ability to fight fires, according to the report.

The cost of Sarnia Fire and Rescue’s new ladder truck increased by around $500,000 over the past few years, but fortunately for taxpayers, the manufacturer stuck with the original price, blackburnnews.com reported.

When the service ordered the 78-foot truck from Florida in 2021, the cost was $1.5 million, the report said. A fire official said since then, the truck has seen five price increases.

The new truck, which arrived last month, replaces an existing truck that reached the end of its cycle — 13 years in service and seven in reserve, according to the report.

The vehicle has a shorter wheelbase for better maneuverability which allows it to get into tighter spots around the city, the report said.