{"id":18517,"date":"2021-12-22T20:14:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-23T01:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=18517"},"modified":"2021-12-22T22:03:53","modified_gmt":"2021-12-23T03:03:53","slug":"the-availability-of-critical-emergency-fire-and-rescue-services-is-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/12\/22\/the-availability-of-critical-emergency-fire-and-rescue-services-is-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"The availability of critical emergency fire and rescue services is needed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The availability of critical emergency fire and rescue services for south Lakeland is the key for the growth of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fire-truck.jpg?resize=275%2C183&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18518\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our City Commissioners need to understand that growth has to pay for growth\u2026. So if the Commissioners approve growth then the infrastructure needs to be there \u2026.. aka emergency fire and rescue services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Will Lakeland Fire Department\u2019s response time will continue to be&nbsp;impacted as the following projects begin construction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Gresham Trails, slated for 321 single-family homes&nbsp;<\/li><li>Parkway Preserve&nbsp;with 300 apartments<\/li><li>Amazon&#8217;s expansion&nbsp;of a 64,000 square-foot cargo sorting facility and truck bays<\/li><li>Lakeland Central Park,&nbsp;a 740-acre industrial complex&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2020, it took Station 7&nbsp;(3150 Drane Field Rd) firefighters eight minutes on average&nbsp;to respond to a call for a structure fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s nearly two minutes longer than any other station in Lakeland.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Station 7 responded to 1,270 calls in 2020, according to Lakeland Fire Department&#8217;s annual report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fire Chief Doug Riley told city commissioners that the station&#8217;s location on the north side of the airport and heavy traffic on local roads result&nbsp;in&nbsp;lengthy response times.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It\u2019s&nbsp;a fairly&nbsp;short distance if we could go straight across airport,&nbsp;but we&nbsp;can&#8217;t,&#8221; Riley said. &#8220;If we use Hamilton&nbsp;or Waring roads to get&nbsp;to Morgan Creek and or&nbsp;River stone \u2013 <strong>We have nine-&nbsp;to 12-minute&nbsp;response times which we are not comfortable with<\/strong>,&#8221; said Riley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One item the LFD could add is a recuse truck and two extra personnel to station 7, so the fire truck is also available for fires. Over 80% of the calls to the LFD are medical related so by using a recuse truck it\u2019s a win \u2013win for both the department and the taxpayers until a permanent station can be built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"623\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/img_1702-2-test.jpg?resize=960%2C623&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18519\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/img_1702-2-test.jpg?w=960&amp;ssl=1 960w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/img_1702-2-test.jpg?resize=300%2C195&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/img_1702-2-test.jpg?resize=768%2C498&amp;ssl=1 768w\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fire Union President stated, \u201cWe support the Chief Riley and it\u2019s critical that emergency fire and rescue services are available to all taxpayers on a timely basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are two other county-owned fire stations in the Southwest corner of Lakeland, including Medulla Fire Department, and a new one that&#8217;s under construction. Medulla is currently only staffed on a volunteer basis, according to LFD Fire Chief Riley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fire chief said&nbsp;Lakeland&nbsp;has a mutual aid agreement with Polk County&nbsp;so medical emergencies will receive an ambulance immediately. However, Riley said calls for fires require the city to assess the situation and call Polk for help, if needed.&nbsp;&#8220;It&#8217;s not automatic, so it&#8217;s not always in a timely manner,&#8221; Riley said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The availability of critical emergency fire and rescue services for south Lakeland is the key for the growth of Lakeland. Our City Commissioners need to understand that growth has to&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2019],"class_list":["post-18517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-the-availability-of-critical-emergency-fire-and-rescue-services-is-needed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}