Fire Station 2, located at 333 Franklin Street in Marietta, Ohio, will be in use for the first time since 1985. It will serve as a training facility and provide space for the fire department to store an additional fire truck. Fire Chief Durham also shared some historical details about the station.
"Station 2 used to be in the fire department up to about 1985 when it was closed for operation. Here recently, it had been used as our public facilities department. The city got to a point where they were considering selling it, and we reapproached them cause we had a fire engine that was not under a city roof. That was a perfect opportunity for us to get it back under city roof and have a place to store it for the lowest possible dollar figure for the taxpayers."
The station will not be staffed. However, it will offer the fire department several key benefits.
"It's actually a huge improvement for our response time because anytime we have a structure fire in the city, one of the things we do as early on as we can is send someone to get that truck and bring it to the scene because at some point, that truck will be the last truck left, and we'll get the other three primary trucks back into the city, so they can start covering the city responses again."
The fire station values its interactions with surrounding communities. Fire Chief Durham has shared a message for the city of Marietta and the neighborhood near Station 2.
"We're just excited. Bear with us when you see construction going on because we're going to have a lot of stuff we need to do to fix it up. But if the doors are open, the fire trucks are there. Please, if you're in the community, stop in and see us. We'd love to show you around and just have that engagement like we do at the other stations with the public."
