New Florence fire stations expected to be fully operational by January

FLORENCE, S.C. (WMBF) - The city of Florence’s $5.5 million construction of two new fire stations is nearly complete.

Leaders said the stations are worth every penny, and they could help property owners save some money.

“We’re on track for a December completion date, the process started with the understanding Station 4 on Jody Road would be finished first, and Station 6 would follow shortly behind that, and it’s still on track that way,” Florence Fire Chief Shannon Tanner said.

While many construction projects have seen delays due to increased materials costs and labor shortages, Tanner said they’ve had very few issues getting their two new fire stations built.

“The weather has been very good for us, we had a lot of site work that had to be done, and we didn’t see any slowdowns there, so it looks like right now we should have a January opening,” Tanner said.

City leaders broke ground on the project in March.

Fire Station 4 is being built on Jody Road and will replace the current Station 4 on Palmetto Street. While the city of Florence is getting a sixth fire station on Smith Drive.

“The reason for the additional station and the relocation of the other station is over the past few years the annexation has been going westward, and it kind of annexed in a Y pattern,” Tanner said.

Tanner said the new stations will give them full coverage to their growth boundaries in both West Florence and Northwest Florence.

This should improve response times in turn allowing the Florence Fire Department to maintain its Class One Rating from the Insurance Services Office.

A Class One ISO rating is the highest a department can receive, meaning lower insurance rates for the city’s property owners.

“With the stations being where they are now, it’ll give us the ability to converge all the stations together all over the city and will give us the response times needed to keep our ISO 1 rating and in turn that helps our citizens,” Tanner said.

Tanner said both stations are nearly fully staffed. He said the fire captains have already been named.

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