The Brief
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Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is eyeing space in eastern Hillsborough County for a new fire station.
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The station would replace two aging fire stations in Plant City.
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HCFR is holding a community meeting Tuesday evening to share plans for the proposed station.
PLANT CITY, Fla. – Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is trying to keep up with a rising number of service calls in a growing part of the county.
“Our call volume continues to rise,” HCFR Public Information Safety Chief Rob Herrin said. “You know that development in Hillsborough County is on the rise, people are moving here.”
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HCFR is looking to replace two aging fire stations in Plant City with one new, larger fire station.
The backstory
HCFR officials said Station 26 and Station 30 are both in Plant City and were built in the 1980s.
“We can’t add new apparatus, more apparatus to it if we needed to, because it’s maxed out,” Herrin said. “Let’s combine those two, build a bigger station, a three-bay or even a four-bay station.”
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Big picture view
The proposed new fire station would serve the Plant City and Thonotosassa area. The county is looking to buy a 5.9-acre property on West Sam Allen Road in Plant City to build the station on.
“Right now, they want fire stations built three feet above base flooding level,” Herrin said. “This will meet that need. We’re going to have bigger bays, bigger living quarters, so that in the future, let’s say demand dictates, we add another ambulance there. We have the ability to do that.”
The new station would also have upgraded resources for firefighter health and safety, including a decontamination unit.
“Firefighters come from structure fires with carcinogens on their person, on their gear,” Herrin said. “The modern stations now, the ones that are being built, have a place before you walk into the station, which is where we live. We live there for 24, that’s our house. We don’t want to bring that stuff into our house. We can jump in the shower and decon before we come in.”
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Dig deeper
The proposed fire station joins replacement projects at three other stations in Hillsborough County – Station 15 in Palm River, Station 10 in Armdale and Station 13 in Citrus Park.
While improvement projects make progress in the county, similar projects in the City of Tampa remain stalled.
Funding for the construction of Tampa Fire Rescue Station 24 was approved in 2022, but earlier this month, city leaders said groundbreaking had been pushed back to next year.
“So, ultimately, there hasn’t really been a good answer for that given, in my opinion, in terms of why it’s been taken for so long again,” Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera said earlier this month.
Earlier this month, TFR also cited growth and demand for emergency services.
As HCFR moves forward with rebuild and replacement projects at stations around the county, it’s eyeing more growth in the coming years.
“Right now, we’re staffed for 47 stations,” Herrin said. “We’re looking at 49, maybe even 50 within the next few years, which is great.”
What’s next
HCFR is holding a community meeting on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Bethany Baptist Church in Plant City. Fire officials will be sharing plans for the proposed new station, and residents will be able to ask questions and voice any concerns about the proposal.
Fire officials said this new station is still a few years out from completion.
The Source
The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Kylie Jones.
