ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – St. Johns County will add five new fire stations over the next six years to invest in public safety.
The county announced four of the new fire stations will include sheriff’s office substations.
St. Johns County Fire Chief Sean McGee said the additional stations can help reduce response times.
“The faster we can get there to mitigate a situation, the better it is for the public. The way our county is geographically set up, it makes it tough, in some instances, to get to places fast, specifically, the Flagler estate station that’s coming onboard will really help with those response times in that area,” McGee said.
McGee said the county’s current Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating is 3x, which means, according to the University of Tennessee, that some of the community is more than 1,000 feet from a water supply but within 5 road miles of a fire station.
The county is working on finding ways to improve that rating.
“Part of this plan includes putting water tankers on to help with that situation down there,” McGee said. “It’s based on how close you are to a fire station, and how close to a fire hydrant is kind of like your best ratings in that sense.”
Improving the rating could potentially improve insurance values.
“We’re getting ready to start up our next ISO rating review. Hopefully, with some of the stuff we’re doing, we can get that adjusted, there’s always a potential for that. That’s always the goal,” he said.
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Part of the plan also includes $9 million to renovate existing fire stations that were initially built as volunteer stations.
“They were never really built to house 24/48 staffing models with fire stations so that’s another big initiative that the county is committed to, to help to get our current fire stations that need some repairs and some remodeling to get them up to par,” said McGee.
Fire Station 11 in Elkton off State Road 207 is under renovation and will be ready at the end of summer.
Chris Naff, the public information officer for St. Johns County Fire, explained how the station will be staffed.
“So the engine will have three. The tower will have three. The rescue will have two and the tanker will have one and then there will eventually be a battalion chief. So you’ll have 10 to 15 people on a daily basis rotate through here,” Naff said.
McGee said adding the fire stations throughout the county will help them get ahead of the rapid population growth.
“You want to be ready. You want to have things in place, like you want to be prepared before the storm hits,” McGee said. “So having these assets and resources in place as people move into these areas, they’ll have the peace of mind and security of already have protection in those areas.”
McGee also said building and renovating fire stations isn’t the only focus for the county. They’re also working to build a training facility. He said they’re still working to find a site to build it.
“We’re looking at adding another 105 firefighters to our department, which is going to require training on their part also,” McGee said. “So the training center is another really big initiative that’s going to help us.”