Station 5, the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District station near the entrance to Forest Lakes, is expanded, renovated, and now housing paramedics for around-the-clock response times.
A wildland fire crew will live in the station this summer.
On Saturday, district staff and County Commissioner Julie Westendorff cut a ribbon to re-open the new 3,131-square-foot building. The Upper Pine Auxiliary provided refreshments, and staff and board members gave tours of the new facility.
The district began providing paramedic service in August of 2014 to provide a higher level of medical care to area residents. Seventy-seven percent of the district's calls are for emergency medical services, said Chief Bruce Evans. Alcohol and drug-related incidents and falls of elderly people are a large percentage of medical calls. The paramedics are housed at this station so they are close to the ambulances stationed at Vallecito and in Bayfield.
The district was able to keep the cost down on this project as the firefighters did a significant amount of the work, Evans added. Firefighters help set the forms for the concrete masonry units, framed, sheeted the roof, set bricks and flooring, and assisted with the finish work. The project was managed by the district's facility maintenance technician Tom Higgins and Deputy Chief Roy Vreeland, both home builders in the past. The design and architectural oversight was provided by Kevin Reed, LLC.
