In emergencies, it’s said that seconds can be the difference between life and death.
Gainesville Fire Rescue’s new downtown fire station, which became operational at noon Monday, will use new technology to help firefighters shave seconds off response times and save more lives, said GFR Deputy Chief JoAnne Rice.
“In our business, whether it’s a house fire or cardiac arrest, every little second counts,” Rice said Monday. “And the fire station is a piece that we get to control. We don’t control how fast dispatch gets the call in and gets it over to us, but we can control how fast we get to the trucks and get going.”
The new 22,000-square-foot Fire Station 1 at 525 S. Main St. is equipped with rapid opening doors synchronized to its emergency alarms.
When an emergency alarm goes off, the doors to the fire station apparatus bays automatically open — cutting the time it took the doors to open from about 15 seconds to less than 10 seconds, Rice said.