“Dispatcher, please show Station 12 and Engine 12 in-service and available.”
“Message received, Chief 2. Station 12 is officially open and Engine 12 is in-service and available.”
For residents of Grand Rapids’ Third Ward, the new Kendall Street Fire Station on Kalamazoo Avenue Southeast provides a greater sense of security. Fire Chief Brad Brown says this new station and engine will greatly decrease emergency response times for the area, with 12 new, permanent firefighters assigned full-time.
“The city of Grand Rapids has a goal of getting the first unit on scene of an emergency in six and a half minutes from the time someone calls dispatch. Down in this district, they were only meeting those goals about 50% of the time, and that had been going on for years.”
All alarms go directly to firefighter’s cell phones and are integrated into video monitors throughout the station showing addresses, maps, and caller information.
Chief Brown says funding for the project came from multiple sources.
“The city paid for the land and the initial programming, the state paid for the building, and the federal government paid for the first three years of staffing for these firefighters. After that, it’s already planned to come out of the general fund as all other public safety expenses do.”
It’s been nearly four decades since the city constructed a new fire station. Brown says this project is the beginning of major investments in city emergency services, with the building of a new Division Avenue station and a new training center.
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