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Wake Forest’s rapid growth means it
needs not just one more fire station but
three stations, Fire Chief Jerry Swift
will tell the town board Tuesday night.
The price tag? “To construct
the fire houses, to equip those fire
houses and to put apparatus in there is
right at ten million, and that’s not
including personnel,” Swift said. He
estimates another $5 million annually in
salaries.
The stations would be spread
to the west, the east and the south.
Station #3, already approved, will be on
Wake Union Church Road. Swift says the
site for Station #4 will be on Wait
Avenue between the entrance to the new
Bishop’s Grant subdivision and Carrie
Mae Road nearly to Averette Road.
Station #5 will be on Forestville Road
between Song Sparrow Drive and the
Thornrose subdivision.
Although Station #3 is
already approved by the town and Wake
County, Swift said determining the exact
location and construction are on hold,
waiting for Jim Adams to raze the old
Parker-Hannifin plant buildings and
relocate Wake Union Church Road. The
department may be building the next two
stations before #3 gets underway, Swift
said.
Swift has developed a
32-page five-year plan for the
independent fire department and a
24-page standard of coverage document.
“Our goal is a five-minute response time
or less eighty percent of the time to
structural fires.”
He and the firefighters are
conducting time trials, working to
determine the response time to recent
structure fires from the two present
stations and from the future stations. A
station Wake Union Church Road, #3,
would have meant a 60 percent decrease
in response times to past fires, and a
station on Wait Avenue cut the response
time by 58 percent.
The Wake Forest Fire
Department is an incorporated,
independent body with a board of
directors. It contracts with the town
and the county to provide fire
protection. The town has committed 10
cents on the 54-cent property tax for
the fire department, which this year
will be $1.7 million. Ten cents of the
property tax outside the town limits
also goes to fire protection, but some
of it is retained by the county.
The work session, which
begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3,
should be a long one with five more
items on the agenda.
Fred Day, the Progress
Energy CEO and co-chairman of the Blue
Ribbon Committee on the Future of Wake
County, will present the committee’s
findings.
The town’s seven advisory
boards – cemetery, greenway, historic
preservation, human relations, parks and
recreation, senior citizens and urban
forestry – will give their annual
reports.
The planning staff will give
a presentation about the municipal
service district.
Little Diversified, the
architects hired to plan for the new
town hall, will present their final
draft for the building arrangement on
the site on Brooks Street. The site also
extends to East Elm Avenue.
The final item is a review
of the draft agenda for the action
meeting on Oct. 17. |
