By Parker Garlough
York News-Times
YORK, Neb. — York’s new fire station officially opened with fanfare Saturday morning.
The previous fire station, located at 815 N. Grant Ave, was constructed in 1967. Construction on the new fire station at 1714 N. Lincoln Ave. began in December 2024.
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The city had initially looked into remodeling the old building due to concerns about its age but realized that it would be just as expensive as constructing a new one.
“When we started this process in the fall of 2022, one of our biggest problems we had was finding a location for this fire station,” Fire Chief Tony Bestwick said. “We searched high and low … but we always came back to this one.”
It contains technological improvements, such as “technology for cancer prevention and technology that enables more vehicles to be mobilized,” Nebraska Freemason Grand Historian Jim Cope said at a cornerstone-laying ceremony at the station in December.
For example, it has a ventilation system to deal with diesel exhaust and a decontamination station to extract harmful substances from “bunker gear,” the clothing firefighters wear while fighting fires.
The additional space also accommodates an increase in personnel. The new building has individual bedrooms for overnight shifts. Typically, firefighters work 24-hour shifts with 48-hour breaks in between.
“At the old station, they were all kind of a dormitory style,” with multiple people in one room, volunteer firefighter Dave Northwest said.
Down the hall from the bedrooms is the exercise room, where firefighters maintain the fitness level they need to do their job.
“Some of this equipment came from the old station,” Northwest said. “A lot of it came from the Community Center.”
The meeting room is also bigger than it was in the previous building.
“This is usually where we hold our monthly meetings, and then if we’re doing big training events or anything like that,” Northwest said.
It also held a Battle of the Badges blood drive June 22.
“With this building, the future is very bright for members of the York Fire Department,” Bestwick said.
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