“It would have been the spot for an incident command post for that fire and we would have had an earlier jump on that fire,” Blowing Rock Fire Chief Kent Graham said. “Fortunately, Laurel Fork Baptist Church made their facility available for an incident command post. They were absolutely fantastic.”  

Currently, Blowing Rock Fire Department operates its largest station on Valley Boulevard and Station 2 on U.S. 221. The facility under construction (Station 3), which has been planned since before the property was purchased in 2011, is located at 2409 Aho Road.

Station 3 will feature three bays and have room for an engine, tanker and a brush truck. Graham noted that down the road a medical support response vehicle could be stacked in a bay with a brush truck. The facility will also feature a bunkroom for manning during special situations and a community room for citizens in the Aho and Sampson areas.

Currently, Station 1 is nearly 5 miles away from the future Station 3 location.

Graham noted that the construction of Station 3 should bring all of the property within the Blowing Rock Fire District into a protected fire insurance classification, which will improve both response times and insurance premiums to that area of the fire district.

Blowing Rock Fire and Rescue is borrowing up to $1 million to build Station 3.

Council made the decision at the Nov. 28 meeting to hold on to the old aerial fire truck, sometimes referred to as a ladder truck, which was slated for sale following delivery of a new truck.

Coun. Sheena Hughes made the motion, which was approved unanimously, that would see the unit instead kept as a backup and have administration report on its condition in early 2018.

"I think it may be good enough to function as a backup, and we won't know that until we see stats a year from now," she said.

Hughes noted the plan to purchase a new truck to serve as a secondary aerial unit would be difficult to accomplish, given the city's forecasted 10-year capital budget deficit of more than $300 million.

While the plan had initially been to sell the truck for an estimated $500,000 and put that money toward the purchase of a new aerial truck, council heard that sale price is no longer realistic given the current market.

Mayor Nolan Crouse, mistakenly reading from a confidential administrative report, indicated there had been an offer of $120,000 for the truck, which the city rejected, and that there are currently three similar trucks sitting on a reseller's lot in the United States that have been there for two years.

"It's a Sumner County ambulance service and it may be located in Gallatin, but when we leave here this afternoon, one of us may need that ambulance right here," said Sumner County Commissioner Paul Decker, who also serves on the emergency services committee. "It's for all of Sumner County and I think the prospects of us maybe having to do (this) in other parts of the county are very high, but I don't think that's a bad thing."

Gallatin city leaders chose to seek funding from the county for the EMS portion of the 13,000-square-foot station after they were informed in October that it would cost an estimated $3.3 million to build the facility. The city has $1.8 million budgeted for the project.

Currently, it takes an ambulance between eight and 13 minutes to respond to some areas along Lock 4 Road between Nashville Pike and Peach Valley Road from the nearest station on Airport Road, according to Sumner County EMS data.

Gallatin-based Goodall Homes has plans to build 233 new homes in the immediate area of the proposed fire station. Of those, the 206-unit Patterson Farms development is expected to be completed by 2020, according to an estimated timeline for construction submitted earlier this year to the city's planning department.