As South Hill grows, Central Pierce Fire’s new station puts responders closer to action

As the Puyallup Police Department embarks on its move to South Hill, Central Pierce Fire & Rescue is putting shovels in the ground for their state-of-the-art station on the same lot.

CPFR is building a new Station 72 on two acres of what’s known as the Lumbermen’s property at 703 39th SE. It will stand alongside the new Puyallup Justice Center.

The new station will replace two other stations on South Hill: the current Station 72, located at 3509 27th St. SE, and Station 66, located at 9813 128th St. E.

The price tag for the new Station 72 project was over $10 million. Anticipated completion date is late 2019. Construction began this month.

The move is a strategic one, meant to bring firefighters closer to where they’re seeing the most calls and where they anticipate more calls will be in the future.

“The population (in unincorporated Pierce County communities) is set to expand by 40-60,000 in the next few years with new zoning requirements going in, so this is going to help us serve our citizens better,” CPFR Assistant Chief Guy Overby said.

More people means more potential calls

Out of CPFR’s 12 full-time stations, three are currently located on South Hill: Station 66, 69 and 72.

As of 2017, those three stations made up 7,533 of the department’s 28,961 incidents, or about 26 percent of calls.

“All three stations here are very busy, especially with all the assisted living and nursing facilities up here,” Overby said.

That’s only expected to increase as Pierce County’s South Hill Community Plan increased its high-density residential designations.

“Most of our call volume is actually … toward the Meridian corridor,” said Mark Clayton, a CPFR firefighter engineer who’s worked out of Station 66 for more than three years. “Right here on the Meridian corridor and on the top of (South) Hill, they’re starting to go up more in their building processes. It’s no longer like three- or four-story buildings. We’re going to start seeing four or six stories. So that’s definitely going to have an impact on call volume for the area.”

CPFR staff pointed out some newly constructed residential areas in South Hill that could affect call volume, including retirement facilities Julian Estates, which opened earlier this year off 94th Avenue, and Wesley Homes Bradley Lake off 39th Avenue, which started moving in residents this week.

Antiquated stations

Not only have times changed for South Hill, but they’ve changed for CPFR, too — especially when it comes to stations 66 and 72.

“Both of the stations are very outdated; cramped living quarters, really not up to modern standards for firefighting or even living or working out of there,” Overby said.

Station 66 was built in 1968. Built for five staff members at all times, Station 66 has no sprinkler system — which is now required in new stations — and has an outdated plumbing system that would be costly to update.

Station 66 staff members could also benefit from a new alerting system. When called to an emergency, firefighters’ current alarm system is sudden and blaring, and everyone hears it at full volume all the time, which can cause strains on the heart and long-term health issues. An ideal alerting system would start quieter, building louder and louder, and it would sound in certain areas of the building louder than others depending on who was needed, such as medics or the engine crew.

“Newer type stations are able to integrate a system that slowly ramps up in volume, and they can actually separate the medic units from the engines from the (battalion chief quarters), whereas we hear everything and it’s a very loud alert,” CPFR Paramedic Eric McNealley said.

Firefighters at Station 72 face the same issues with outdated systems. The station opened in 1978 in what originally was going to be a house. The station staffs five people at all times — two for the medic unit and three for the engine. When they have a sixth person, they cobble together a bed separated by curtains, which presents some privacy issues, especially when multiple genders are working out of the same station.

How the new Station 72 will help

Station 72 will have the healthier, staggered alerting systems. It’ll have designated living and working spaces with systems in place that will help prevent firefighters from tracking contaminated materials into the places where they sleep and eat.

The station will house two medic units, one engine and one tiller. The tiller, which is most often used in high-rise rescues, will be moved from where it’s currently stored at Station 71 in downtown Puyallup.

“We’re going to have higher buildings up in this area than we would downtown,” Overby said.

Because it’s joining two stations, there will be a minimum of 11 personnel stationed at the new Station 72 at all times. To staff the station year-round requires a total of 47 personnel. Existing staff will be transferred from the old Station 66 and 72.

At its new location, Station 72 will place firefighters directly in the hub of activity on South Hill, so response times are anticipated to decrease.

“Yeah, there are going to be some areas where response time increases,” Overby said. “But when you look at the majority of it, where are we going the most? The assisted living and all the other stuff that’s going in right around that area, that’s going to be the majority of our calls there that we should be able to hit in a quicker fashion.”

After the transition to the new station, CPFR is keeping its options open for the former Station 66.

“We are conducting a Master Planning process to better inform us of where the large population increases are predicted to occur and estimate service demands based upon these projections,” CPFR Chief Dan Olson said in an email. “From this we will develop a long range plan for station locations and the eventual disposition of the current station 66 property.”

Station 73, which is currently sharing a facility with the Puyallup Police Department headquarters in downtown Puyallup, is earmarked to move in the future to a different location downtown.

This story was originally published August 21, 2018 at 10:00 AM.