VIDEO/PHOTOS: Amarillo has commenced construction on a new $7.3 million fire station in the medical district, marking a significant addition to the Amarillo Fire Department (AFD). Fire Chief Jason Mays expressed hopes to add two or three more stations across the city.
“Also, with every station needs means we’re going to need more firefighters. More firefighters means more fire trucks. So we’ve been well supported in this city. We will do everything we can to meet the need for fire service in the city of Amarillo and we’ll do the best we can with what we got,” Mays said.
Mayor Cole Stanley highlighted the city’s focus on public safety in recent budgets, with $25 to $30 million allocated to AFD over the past two to three years.
“In the previous budget, you know, we had located 29 million dollars. We reprioritized over 14 million of that to just go to public safety, and that was in the form of pay raises and additional equipment some other stuff. In this current budget that we’ve just passed, I want to say that the fleet services side of that for the fire Apparatus and everything that they’ve asked for is north of 13 million dollars,” Stanley said.
