During last Thursday’s Idaho Falls City Council meeting elected officials unanimously approved funding to purchase property to build a new fire station to accommodate commercial and residential growth, according to a news release from the city.

The City Council approved the purchase of the seven acre vacant lot on the corner of Spitfire and Boeing Streets with a goal of building a new fire station to the north of Idaho Falls in the next three to four years.  

“This property purchase was planned and it will be accomplished without using local property tax dollars,” says Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper. “City officials are entrusted to spend public funds wisely, so when the opportunity arose to purchase the property with federal ARPA dollars combined with funds from the sale of an unneeded city property, we jumped on it. The Council members and I feel this creative approach best serves the interest of city taxpayers while still planning for future safety needs,” explains Casper. 

A total of $10,000 was authorized by City Council as earnest money towards the $900,000 property. A total of $658,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was allocated with an additional $252,000 coming from the auction and sale of the old fire station/fire prevention building located on the corner of Holmes Avenue and 8^th Street.

“Planning for future growth of our city as well as the infrastructure and public safety needs that growth requires is always at the forefront of our minds,” states IFFD Fire Chief Duane Nelson. 

The IFFD has experienced a steady increase in calls for service over the past three to four years, averaging 1,000 more calls per year. In 2021, the department had a significant spike at 3,000 more calls, totaling 17,230. IFFD not only provides fire protection to the City of Idaho Falls and most of Bonneville County, but they also have contracts to provide EMS services to all of Bonneville County and portions of Jefferson and Bingham Counties.  IFFD Annual Report 2021  

According to the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association), response time standards for EMS calls is under 4 minutes and under 5 minutes for fire-related calls. The determination of the need for a new station and where to locate it was accomplished through NFPA standards, IFFD dispatch call data, and growth projections based on City GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping. The northern station will address the growth along North River Road, Sage Lakes, and the northern county line.  

The design for the new station will include multiple bays that will not only house frontline engines, ambulances, and personnel but also address current storage limitations. The location of the station has an added benefit of improving efficiency as it will be located near the city shop and vehicle wrecking yards, making it easier for IFFD to coordinate vehicle accident extrication training on IFFD’s property. 

“This new station is one more step we are taking toward maintaining a high level of service delivery while keeping us in line with national standards and relieving pressure on our current personnel responding to high call volumes. We thank our community and elected officials for their continued support,” adds Nelson.

Firefighters with the Falls of Rough (KY) Fire Department have recovered some of the items stolen from their station sometime Tuesday night, or early Wednesday morning, but they are still missing items and are looking for help to retrieve them, according to a report published by K105 radio station.

According to the report, the station on Green Farms Road was burglarized and more than $10,000 worth of gear and equipment was stolen, including three sets of newly purchased turnout gear valued at $2,500 each.

Firefighters took a proactive approach to recovering the stolen items and patrolled back roads in the area looking for items the thieves may have discarded, according to the report. While on patrol, firefighters noticed a dirt bike in the back of a pickup truck that was allegedly stolen from an adjacent, privately owned building during the same time frame the station had been burglarized.

From that observation, burglary suspects were identified and some of the stolen equipment was recovered, although thousands of dollars’ worth of items remains missing, said the report and the case remains under investigation.

According to a report from The Morning Call, despite Hellertown, Pennsylvania’s, Dewey Fire Company (DFC) #1 taking delivery of its new state-of-the-art quint truck on June 1, paperwork problems sidelined the $1 million firetruck that had been serving the area for several weeks.

The DFC’s new quint features a 111-foot aerial ladder and 500-gallon water tank and is now the department’s largest piece of equipment, said DFC Chief Matt Simkovic.

However, issues with getting the vehicle’s title and registration prevented PFC members from deploying it to responses or even training on it on the street.

Last week, DFC finally received the documents from PennDOT. An official with state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton said that the process should have taken 2-3 weeks.

Last week, Simkovich said that DFC firefighters could place the quint in service as early as this week, although most likely, it will not be done until the end of August, depending on how soon the firefighters are versed in using the truck. Training with and supplying the quint began last week, he said.

Borough Manager Cathy Hartranft said the issues stemmed from a delay in dealing with information provided to the state. She said the borough used a private notary service to handle the documents, but when the situation suffered a delay, she contacted Boscola’s office for assistance. Boscola’s staff learned from PennDOT that the application for the vehicle documents was rejected twice and returned to the notary, 412 Auto Tags & Notary.

Owner Yolanda Pinto, who took over the business July 1, said there was an additional problem regarding the borough’s tax exempt status that PennDOT questioned.

Officials with PennDOT did not respond to requests for comment.

Simkovic said the new truck might have helped in responding to a rubbish fire June 20 outside the Dollar General store on Main Street that extended into the building. Although Simkovich also said that missing this additional apparatus did not make a “significant difference” in handling that or other recent responses.

A Lawnsdale firefighter faces vehicular homicide charges in a January crash in which a fire truck collided with a car, killing two people inside.

The accident happened while Lawnsdale firefighters were responding to Magnolia on a mutual aid call.

Police say the fire truck crossed over a yellow line to get around cars stopped at a red light at the corner of Warwick Road and White Horse Pike. The truck then proceeded through a red light at the intersection and collided with a Nissan Sentra carrying two people. Both were killed.

On Friday, the Camden County prosecutor’s office announced John Gibson, 29, of Lawnside, NJ, was charged with two counts of second-degree vehicular homicide in the incident.