The new Johnson County Ambulance Service building at 808 S. Dubuque St. is on track to be completed by the end of March 2017.

The Iowa City Council last week unanimously agreed to rezone neighboring property at 818 S. Dubuque St. as public property so it can be incorporated into the project. The rezoning goes through two more council readings before becoming official, though the city already has issued a building permit.

Steve Spenler, director of Ambulance Services, said the building also will house the medical examiner’s office and provide storage space for the county auditor’s office.

He said his department expects to move into the new space next April.

County supervisors awarded the $7.5 million construction contract for the new building in March to Dubuque-based Portzen Construction.

Spenler said the new two-story, 34-100-square-foot building has more space than the previous one, which has been in use since 1988. The newest ambulances the county owns, he said, cannot fit into the old building and are housed elsewhere.

The “remount” plan involves removing the “box” from the chassis and sending it back to its manufacturer for a complete refurbishment.

They will upgrade the lighting packages, replace door seals, change lighting to LED, install cooler boxes and go through the entire unit, bringing it up to original equipment manufacturing standards, Gehres told the board.

“And they provide the same lifetime warranty you get when you buy a new ambulance,” he said.

The refurbished box is then remounted on a new chassis — with a new engine.

It’s like a new ambulance, Gehres said, but costs about $125,000 altogether — while a brand new ambulance currently runs $194,000. The price of a new ambulance has been rising about 5 percent a year, Gehres said.

The existing ambulance chassis can potentially be repurposed by the town or sold, he said.

Gehres is planning to do a remount on two vehicles in the district’s fleet, both of which have outdated boxes and high mileage on their engines.

“It will take about six months to get it all completed,” he said.

"We can bring a firefighter from the fire line to a landing zone. If a helicopter is not available we can bring them right down to the incident command post and put them in an over the road ambulance," said Idaho Falls firefighter and paramedic Sean Allen.

It's the department’s all-terrain vehicle that not only can transport firefighters, but also treat them along the way.

"It has all the capabilities of an advanced life-support ambulance. Respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest, major traumas and major medicals. We can provide all the care," Allen said.

The Idaho Falls Fire Department put the vehicle to use during the Pioneer Fire, and it has already proven to be beneficial.

"There was a firefighter burned on this incident and there have also been some of them who have gotten sick, mostly with heat exposure, and we've been able to bring the care to them," Allen said.

This is the first time the 'mini' has been used in this capacity. It provides not only medical treatment, but also clinical care to those firefighters on the front lines. All in an effort to help protect fellow firefighters.