VIDEO: 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.” HCFR is looking to replace two aging fire stations in Plant City with one new, larger fire station. 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.” 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.
