By Terry Morris
The Dayton Daily News
KETTERING, Ohio — Not much about the Kettering Fire Department besides the locations and dimensions of the stations is the same as when Terry Jones was hired as a firefighter 25 years ago.
“I would never have anticipated the kind of transformation that has taken place,” said Jones, who has been acting chief since October 2011.
“When I started, we had 1,700 to 1,800 calls a year and EMS calls were fewer than fire calls. Now, even though the population has declined, we have 7,500 calls a year and EMS calls are the majority.”
As the population has aged, so have the now undersized and, in some cases, obsolete facilities, which date back as far as the 1940s.
The City of Kettering’s intent to address heightened demands in service, equipment and training progressed this week with hearings before the board of zoning appeals and city planning commission on a proposed new station at 3484 Far Hills Ave. that would be twice the size of the building on West Dorothy Lane.
City Manager Mark Schwieterman said the next step will be “assessment and environmental studies on the property. We have until April 19 to complete that. We would then be able to move ahead with purchase if the public process and the assessment process are completed successfully.”
The proposed new facility would be just the first of four new stations envisioned in a long-range plan to reduce the number of fire stations in the city from seven to five. The current station on Bobbi Place off East Dorothy Lane would be retained.
Kettering has 52 full-time and 102 volunteer firefighters.
Jones, who was promoted to captain in 2004, training and EMS coordinator in 2005 and assistant chief in 2007, said that if any of the general locations for the new stations doesn’t work out, the entire plan will be affected.
“They aren’t independent from one another. The overall plan has been established to fill in the gaps between them,” he said.
“We haven’t identified the precise locations, but the sites all look as if they will be suitable and the properties will be available.”
Boundaries and shared service areas with Dayton, Moraine, Washington Twp. and Beaver-creek fire departments were also taken into account for the plan.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.