Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would give a parent a longer window of time to surrender a newborn at a fire station or hospital, reports News 12.

The bill would also allow fire stations and hospitals to install a baby box, where a parent could leave the infant without having to hand them over in person to a firefighter or paramedic. 

The bill has passed Florida Senate health care panel but has not been approved by the full Senate.

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Construction continues for a Peninsula Township fire station, reports Old Mission Gazette.

The fire department posted to Facebook, “Siding near complete and paint almost done. Next week the cabinets go in and soon after the floors and drop ceiling. All we need now is to add some firefighters and a fire truck to make this building our home. By the end of February this should happen.”

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Goshen Redevelopment Commission members have hired a firm to begin studying relocation options for a fire station, reports The Goshen News.

The results will be used to find a new location for the station that allows for better coverage of the city’s entire south side. 

According to the contract, work under Task 1 may include the following:

• Geocoding and analyzing historic dispatch data to calibrate the coverage model based on actual response times

• Analyzing the current coverage area and response times of existing station locations

• Determining predicted coverage areas and response times for the proposed site identified by the city

• Preparing a written report including a summary of the analysis, methodology and all associated maps

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According to a report from the Boston Globe, a large bell that was used to alert 19th-century Needham, Massachusetts, residents of fires will soon be a fixture in a Needham Fire Department (NFD) station currently under construction in Needham Heights.

On Monday, Needham’s Permanent Public Building Committee approved additional funding to install the 1,500-pound bell in the new NFD station that’s being erected at Highland Avenue and Webster Street.

The bell, which will cost $40,000 to install, will be displayed prominently in the tower of the new fire station, with a plaque explaining its history and significance.

The bell was made in 1887 by the Blake Bell Co. of Boston and and was originally housed inside the Parker School in Charles River Village, where it served as a school bell and fire alarm for that remote part of town. It remained there until the school closed around 1938. When the school was demolished a few years later, the bell was moved to the old Heights fire station at the corner of Highland Avenue and Mellen Street, where it stayed until the late 1940s.

As that station was being replaced, the bell was given to the Needham Historical Society (now called the Needham History Center & Museum) and placed on its front lawn on Glendoon Road. When the museum moved to its current location on Central Avenue in 2006, the bell went with them.

In 2018, with plans underway to build the new station, NFD Chief Dennis Condon asked if the bell could return to the fire department. The Needham History Center & Museum approved his request and agreed to lend the bell. But to install the bell in the new station properly, engineers needed to know how much it weighed. Last March, the town’s department of public works used lift equipment to bring the bell to the town’s recycling and transfer facility so it could be weighed.

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