Chesterfield Fire and EMS will dedicate the new Midlothian Fire Station No. 5 during a ceremony at 10 a.m. Monday, December 12, according to a press release.
The public is invited to attend. Parking is available at Winfree Church, 13617 Midlothian Turnpike, and free shuttle service will be provided. Attendees are asked to use the church’s Coalfield Road entrance to access the parking and shuttle area.
The three-bay, 15,000-square-foot station, which is located at the intersection of Midlothian Turnpike and Charter Colony Parkway, opened September 12. Its first call for service was for the new ladder truck to assist the Bon Air fire station with a fire alarm activation.
Ladder truck 5 is Chesterfield’s sixth staffed ladder truck and the first added to the countywide Fire and EMS response system since 1989. It addresses increased demand in Midlothian, the county’s most active area for commercial activity that also is seeing significant growth in multifamily housing and mixed-use developments.
More than 2,900 of Chesterfield’s 7,650 residential buildings three stories or taller, or approximately 38%, are located within the new Midlothian fire station’s service district.
“It’s a special day for the county and residents and businesses who will be served by Station 5,” said Midlothian District Supervisor Dr. Mark S. Miller. “Safety of citizens remains the county’s highest priority. By ensuring we have proper facilities and equipment, our Fire and EMS Department is better prepared to preserve and protect our community’s most important asset, our people.”
The Midlothian Volunteer Fire Department (MVFD) began construction of the former Station 5 in 1955 as a two-bay vehicle garage that remains today, less than a mile east of the new station along Route 60. Over the years, several expansion projects were undertaken, focused on a volunteer fire department’s role in the community and were never intended to support a seven day-a-week, 24-hour operation.
Chesterfield Fire & EMS added career firefighters to the station in 1977 and has staffed an engine company out of the facility ever since. But the 67-year-old station, which is now owned by Forest View Volunteer Rescue Squad (FVRS), isn’t large enough to accommodate a ladder truck. It’s also land-locked, limiting the ability to expand the building’s footprint and keep up with population growth.
“When I became fire chief in Chesterfield in late 2008, I quickly recognized that the old Fire Station No. 5 was incapable of supporting current and future Fire and EMS needs in the growing Midlothian area,” said Loy Senter, chief of Chesterfield Fire and EMS. “Following a multi-alarm fire in the Old Buckingham Station apartments in late 2010, work began in earnest to plan for a new fire station in Midlothian that would house additional staff and equipment to better protect the community, including higher density mixed-use and multifamily developments.”
The new Midlothian Station 5 serves an area covering 22.8 square miles, including a population of approximately 29,445 and more than 9,000 structures. In addition to the ladder truck, it also houses an engine, ambulance, technical rescue truck and brush truck, and is staffed daily by at least eight firefighters.