Fire Station 36 and fire headquarters — which includes an emergency operations center, a training facility and a community meeting room — are located at 4745 Hempstead Station Drive.
“We’re excited to open it up,” Kettering Fire Chief Tom Butts said. “We’re locating those fire stations in our communities so that we can make the quickest response times to our citizens. That’s really what’s driving the whole program.”
The new stations were sought as a result of a strategic planning process that began in 2006 and resulted in a comprehensive modernization strategy for all aspects of the Kettering Fire Department.
With an average age of 42 years, Kettering’s fire stations lacked the physical space or available land to properly allow for the improvements necessary to upgrade to current standards.
Construction on Fire Station 34 is now underway at 2575 Woodman Drive, directly south of Tenneco. The design process for Station 37, located at 1300 W. Dorothy Lane, will be completed this year, with construction beginning in 2017.
Bob Morris, who has lived in Kettering for 60 years, attended Thursday’s grand opening just to tour the new station.
“It’s going to give us faster service, more response quicker and everything, the way everything goes,” Morris said.
The old fire stations will either be repurposed or sold, Butts said.
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