LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. — Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue knows to keep up with the population growth in the area, they need more stations.
Fire Station 107 opened Thursday morning and helps crews respond faster to places like State Road 82.
The crew at the new station washed the wheels and hosed down their new fire truck to celebrate their new station.
In February, Fire Chief Robert Dilallo took Lehigh Acres Community Correspondent Ella Rhoades through the construction site. Seven months later, she spoke with him inside the finished station.
"Every fire station that we open up decreases the workload on the rest of the fire stations and decreases the response times for the entire community," Chief Dilallo said.
Watch Lehigh Acres Community Correspondent Ella Rhoades report below:
He said the community needed the station on Leonard Boulevard.
"This was a perfect location because it allows us to make it to our industrial park very quickly but also to State Road 82," Chief Dilallo explained.
The Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District covers 142 square miles. For comparison, the Cape Coral Fire Department covers 120 square miles.
However, Lehigh only has seven fire stations. They try to keep response times under six minutes with the goal for four minutes.
Katie Heck with Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue said with an area this big, there should really be 12 to 15 stations in the community.
Heck said, "This is such a great addition to this area...We're reducing call times, getting out to those bad crashes on State Road 82 a lot faster and, you know, just increasing the level of service that we provide Lehigh Acres."
That additional level of service includes station 107's new advanced life support truck which is also the second ladder truck for the district.
A rescue ambulance and brush truck also call Station 107 home.
To keep up with the growth, they hope to build a new station every three years, while they still stay focused on the now helping Lehigh in an emergency. Especially, with the calls, they receive on SR 82.
"As we all know the crashes are getting really worse and worse. We're seeing speeds increase and a lot of extrication even needed, so this is just another added resource in addition to potentially getting there faster if the crash is West of Daniels," Heck said.
Chief Dilallo said the next station could potentially find its home near Grant and SR 82, but they'll go through the same process evaluating heat call maps and the population when the time comes to officially decide.
