The city also needs to consider the changing role of firefighters -- with the addition of ambulance calls -- since the station was built in 1920, officials said.

Deputy Fire Chief David Groder noted all the city's fire stations were built before responding to EMS calls with ambulances and other rescue vehicles was part of the Fire Department's role. Now, he said, EMS calls make up about 80 percent of the 5,000 calls a year the department gets seeking help.

The building at the head of Rines Hill, above the south end of the city's downtown, would be expanded on the east side of the site, onto land already owned by the city. Also, officials said, it probably would require the discontinuance of the short section of Gage Street that now provides access from just off Memorial Bridge to Water Street.

The city's largest, heaviest firetrucks would be kept in the addition, in two large drive-through bays and two smaller back-in bays; while the existing four smaller bays would be used to park ambulances, pickup trucks and other lighter, smaller pieces of equipment.

A $4 million fire station is under construction at the intersection of Leighton Road and Anthony Avenue to serve the north Augusta area. Hartford is expected to remain the city's main fire station after construction of the new station is complete.

The city already has at least two firetrucks -- an engine and a ladder truck -- that can't be kept at Hartford because they're too big and heavy. The trucks now are kept at the Western Avenue station, and the city in January expects to take delivery of a new multipurpose ladder firetruck, which also won't fit inside Hartford.

Officials said the station is in an ideal location, on top of a hill overlooking the city it was built to protect. A 2008 Matrix Consulting Group study concluded Hartford Station is ideally located to be the city's central fire station.

"This is the best site. We're able to go left, right, or straight up Green Street, and hit all the neighborhoods," Groder said. "It was put there for a reason."

Thursday, in a meeting beginning at 7 p.m. in council chambers at Augusta City Center, councilors are scheduled to vote, in an agenda item sponsored by all council members, on whether to send the proposal to bond $6 million to renovate and roughly double the size of the station to voters in a citywide referendum. Councilors expressed support for it at their most recent meeting.

"Hartford Station has served us well," Ward 3 Councilor Patrick Paradis said. "It met the necessities of 1920. But now it's totally different." He said EMS calls weren't even part of what firefighters responded to from Hartford Station over its first several decades.

"That was one of the big factors in our decision to refurbish the truck -- the Volvo factor," Marks said. "We've already had to wait to have parts made in Sweden, and shipped to us -- that is a 10-week process, and it isn't cheap."

Because of the truck's age, original parts were becoming scarce for it in the U.S.

"About seven years ago, the transmission went out on it, and at that time there were only two transmissions for it in the country, one in Baltimore and one somewhere in Minnesota, and we got one of them," Marks said. "I guarantee there isn't another transmission floating around for it anywhere."

While the truck is technically refurbished by Fire Line Equipment, 4652 Division Highway, East Earl, Lancaster County, it is practically a new truck, according to Marks.

"It is like if you take a pickup truck, and you keep the bed, but replace the cab, chassis, transmission and everything else," he explained. "It is virtually a brand new truck, but for half the price of a brand new truck."

A new truck costs about $700,000, according to Marks.

"We spent about $380,000," Marks said.

Some of the funding for the truck came from Neptune's savings fund, and some of it came from financing through the credit union, Marks said.

"We get some funding from the borough, and some through fundraising -- the income is sporadic," Marks said. "We sat down with several different banks, but the credit union helped us out by tailoring a loan for us. They really worked with us to make this happen."