By Leon Fooksman
Sun-Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Sun-Sentinel Company
All Rights Reserved
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Palm Beach County are spending $130 million to build, renovate and enlarge 36 fire stations and facilities in those cities and the unincorporated western suburbs.
Millions of additional dollars are going to hire and retain firefighters and paramedics.
The rapid expansion of the fire service is intended to keep up -- and in some places catch up -- with the county’s population increases in the early 2000s.
“There’s a lot of work ahead of us,” said Randy Sheppard, deputy chief of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
An average of 26,300 newcomers a year moved to the county between 2000 and 2005. The population explosion, though, is showing signs of slowing: The population increased by 9,057 between 2005 and 2006, according to census data.
Still, county fire officials said construction of large new housing developments, particularly west of Boynton Beach and Lake Worth, has forced the department to expand, so firefighters and EMTs can rush to fires and medical calls in a timely manner.
The county Fire-Rescue’s overall response times improved from 1999 to 2004, but response times for fire calls did not change, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis. The department failed to meet its standards of arriving at fires in seven minutes and 30 seconds or less in a third of calls during those years.
New stations are larger and better equipped to handle modern-day emergencies than those built in previous decades, fire administrators said.
There is extra space for staff to decontaminate from chemicals. Firefighters have additional room to lounge, write reports, and store trucks and rescue equipment. Workout rooms have been added. Some stations have separate rooms for firefighters working 24-hour shifts.
Delray Beach is planning to rebuild the station at Barwick and Lake Ida roads, Battalion Chief Russ Accardi said. The building’s roof and walls were damaged during the 2004 hurricane season. Firefighters will work out of another building while crews rebuild the station, Accardi said.
In the past two years, county Fire-Rescue has opened a station on Pierson Road in Wellington and rebuilt two stations on Southwest 15th Avenue west of Boynton Beach and on Okeechobee Boulevard west of West Palm Beach.
Stations are scheduled to open in the next two years on Purdy Lane west of West Palm Beach, Hypoluxo and Lyons roads west of Boynton Beach, and west of Boca Raton between Military Trail and east of Powerline Drive between Southwest 18th Street and Via De Sonrisa Del Sur.
Another 13 new and replaced stations and facilities are in the works throughout unincorporated Palm Beach County.
The projects’ $90 million costs are paid out of the county’s budget, Sheppard said.
In Boca Raton, the city passed a 2003 bond issue for $17.5 million to rebuild fire stations and construct new ones.
Three have been rebuilt and two have been added on West Yamato Road and Southwest 18th Street. The city’s three other stations also will be rebuilt.
“It was time,” said Frank Correggio, spokesman for Boca Raton Fire Rescue Services Department. “After 30 years, we had to upgrade our facilities and equipment.”
Boynton Beach has built two new stations on South Federal Highway and on West Woolbright Road since 2005, said Steve Lewis, spokesman for Boynton Beach Fire Rescue. The city’s fire assessment fees covered the stations’ $4.6 million construction costs.
Another station will be constructed at Gateway Boulevard and High Ridge Road within two years. That facility also will house the city’s fire headquarters, dispatch system, information technology’s division and the emergency operations center.
A bond issue will have to be passed to cover the projected $15 million cost, Lewis said.
Emergency response times have improved since new stations opened throughout Palm Beach County, fire administrators said.
In Boynton Beach, for instance, fire and medical response times dropped in many areas by as many as two minutes, Lewis said.