Excavator demolishes Gig Harbor fire station to make room for $15.5M building
The walls began coming down on Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One Station 51 on a rainy Monday morning, as crews prepare to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility the fire department says will help reduce response times and improve accommodations for their firefighters on-duty.
The new $15.5 million station, paid through an $80 million capital bond that voters approved in 2022, will replace an aging structure that’s been remodeled four times since it was built and suffers from leaky roofing, according to Fire Chief Dennis Doan. The station was originally built in 1979 and its last remodel was in 2000, per the Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One website.
Other projects funded by the bond include a new fire training facility and renovations to other fire stations in the district, The News Tribune reported. The department initially estimated that replacing Station 51 would cost over $20 million, and the lower-than-expected bid they accepted means the department will have some money saved “to do some other projects on the back end, when we get there,” Doan said.
Doan emphasized the fire department’s gratitude to the community, fire commissioners and city leaders in a short ceremony before the excavator started demolishing the building. About 40 people including the mayor of Gig Harbor, retired firefighters and other elected officials attended.
“Sometimes as politicians, as fire commissioners, as fire chiefs, we get wrapped up in our job, but what’s really important is that the firefighters do their job each and every day because they’re the ones that take care of the citizens,” Doan said at the ceremony. “And this is the way that our community takes care of our firefighters, is giving them a proper place to work out of.”
Doan told The News Tribune that he anticipates the new station to open in about 18 months. The Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One website estimates a timeline of 18 to 24 months for project completion. While the station is closed for demolition and reconstruction, the department has relocated some crew members to other stations, per the website.
The new station “will improve customer service to our community, and it will give our firefighters a proper place to live, because we live here a third of our lives and live in the firehouse 24 hours a day away from their families,” he told The News Tribune.
Gig Harbor Fire has over 100 career firefighters and responded to 7,860 calls in 2025, their website says. The department serves a population of about 53,000 people on the Gig Harbor peninsula and has five fully-staffed, 24/7 stations along with four non-staffed stations. Their operating budget was $46.7 million in 2025.
New two-story building to upgrade firefighters’ accommodations, reduce response times
The modern facility replacing Station 51 will be 20,740 square feet, up 73% from the existing building’s square footage. It will also have two floors instead of one.
The facility will feature three large pull-through apparatus bays (where fire trucks and equipment are parked), two smaller bays for command vehicles, a dedicated decontamination facility, living quarters for up to 11 personnel and a fire pole, among other upgrades, according to the fire department website.
Chief Doan noted that the building will be designed to reduce “turnout time,” calculated “from the moment the bell rings ‘till we leave the door.” In the new station, “we put rooms strategically so that we can get to the rig room faster,” he said.
He’s also looking forward to giving firefighters a modern facility with a workout room and “a nice kitchen for them, because they eat all their meals here,” he added.
“And it’s going to look good,” he said. “It’s going to match our community. Our architects have really taken a lot of time to design it to fit within our community, and I think you’ll see that when it’s all done.”
