EDISION — One local volunteer fire department is making sure it can protect the community quickly if a grass fire happens. The Edison Fire Department now has a new fire station. Station 2 is off of Highway 94 and County Road 3. It is near Rush and approximately an hour drive east of Colorado Springs.
The Chief of the Edison Fire Department, Mark Anderson, said the station will help decrease response times.
Since 2009, the Edison Fire Department has been trying to expand for nearly a decade. Anderson said the idea dates back to 2009. After years of planning, Station 2 is now open. This is the second station in the Edison Fire District. Station 1 is located 14 miles away.
“We cover here at Edison currently at 347 square miles,” Anderson said.
This includes southeast El Paso County, northeast Pueblo County and southwest Lincoln County.
“I've known response times could be 45 minutes from the time we get paged till somebody's first on scene. It's just part of living in the rural area. You just have to face that,” Anderson said.
Station 2 was purposely built in the center of their district. Chief Anderson said this will help his team get to places faster.
“With this station here we can run a lot more fires rural east of us out of this station and it will decrease our response times,” Anderson said
He said the majority of the calls they respond to are for medical and traffic accidents.
“But then fires mostly grass fires, we get some structure fires, residential structure fires. We do have some haystacks struck by lightning from time to time,” Anderson said.
Being in rural areas means no fire hydrants. The chief said they have to fill up these trucks and bring the water with them.
“I mean, we haul 2500 gallons and 2000 gallons. We haul that water 20 miles, 30 miles to put out the fire,” Anderson said.
The new station has a 30,000-gallon water supply tank.
“This is a huge asset for us,” Anderson said.
They currently use a garden hose to fill up the fire trucks, which takes nearly five and a half hours, but with the new water tank, they will be able to use these pipes to fill the trucks in a matter of minutes.
“Not very many fire districts in rural districts have this much water tank at their station. It's going to be a big help for us,” Anderson said.
The chief said having another fire station and a larger water supply in the area will decrease insurance costs for the people who live there. The new fire station is operational, but the chief says the inside is a work in progress.
Station 2 has five truck bays and a space for meetings and training facilities.
Anderson said they are always looking for more volunteers. He also runs a youth program with teenagers who live in the area teaching them what it is like to be a firefighter.
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