WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) — Fire crews in Wyoming will now be able to serve their busiest district even faster.
For the first time ever, Fire Station 2 on Division Avenue south of 44th Street is fully staffed 24/7.
“It had been open in the past just with daytime responders and paid on-call, but we saw the need for having 24-hour coverage in a district that handles about 3,000 calls per year,” Acting Fire Chief Dennis Van Tassell said.
The Wyoming Fire Department hosted a community open house Monday night to celebrate the reopening of the station.
“We’re just really thankful for the support that we continue to get from the Wyoming community,” Van Tassell said.
A $4 million public safety millage passed by Wyoming voters in May 2023 provided funding for renovations, the addition of 12 firefighters and a new platform truck. Van Tassell added that federal American Rescue Plan Act funds were also used for renovations to make the facility livable 24/7. The station now has a dining room, kitchen, male and female locker rooms, laundry, five individual bunkrooms and a fitness area.
Previously, crews had to come from the 36th Street or Gezon station to cover calls to which Division will now respond.
“Some of our district responses were seven, six and a half minutes long just to get here,” Van Tassell said.
He said fully utilizing the Division station could reduce response times by minutes in some cases.
“If someone’s having a medical, like if they’re not breathing or their heart’s not beating at that time, that could be the difference between saving a life or having someone die. Also for fires, there’s been a lot of data that says fires double every minute. Nothing can be 100% confirmed with that, but we do know that every minute that it takes to respond is that much more damage and perhaps that much potential to have somebody that’s trapped inside a home,” Van Tassell said.
In addition to opening the station, the department is launching a new alert system called Phoenix G2. It aims to reduce dispatch time by sending text-to-speech dispatches over a high-speed network. A voice announces the call type over a speaker system that can be heard throughout the building. It also appears on a screen inside the station and a message sign in the apparatus bay. Multiple stations can be notified in under a second.
“Our goal is to get out the door within 60 seconds for most calls, 80 seconds for fire-related calls because it takes longer to put our gear on, but that way we’re kind of mindful of how quick we are,” Battalion Chief Larry Moore said.
The tones and voice of the system are a less jarring way of waking sleeping firefighters, which research suggests can have long-term impacts on their nervous system and ultimately their cardiovascular health.
There is also an app that allows first responders to receive alerts whether they are at the station or on the road.
“From the community upwards, through the city council, the city manager, and the public safety chief, we just had a tremendous amount of support and so that really encourages the membership of the department to really do a great job every day they come to work,” Van Tassell said. “We think that this support is going to allow us just to have a better service model for everybody citywide. There are some pockets that still may take a little bit longer to get to, but this district right now is protected as well as it has ever been protected.”