Beaumont Fire Department Planning Changes to Stations, Service Areas

Better buildings, more equal coverage and lower insurance rates are all goals the Beaumont Fire Department is aiming to achieve in the next few years.  The city approved the beginning of those plans earlier this month as part of a $30 million bond.

For almost 60 years, Beaumont fire fighters have been working out of the same building on Ironton since it opened in the 1950s.  That's one reason why station two is part of a long-term, revamping plan that includes new buildings and reassigned coverage areas.

Fire Chief Anne Huff says the plans started as a collaboration of two separate studies of the city's service areas.

She said, "What we're trying to do is take both of those and then with our knowledge of the city and our service needs trying to figure out what's the best thing to do."

Huff says the 'first' thing is relocating station two a little further north near the Elmo Willard Library on Lucas.  Huff envisions combining the two into a community complex.  Huff says the department is also considering relocating and rebuilding stations seven and eleven, which are on McFaddin and Sabine Pass streets, to adjust overlapping service areas.

"My goal would be to provide the most consistent service to all tax payers across the board," she said, "No gaps in service, if we can avoid those and no duplication or overlaps of service so that we have a really efficient operation where everybody, all the tax payers are served equally well."

Huff says the plan's biggest project combines the administration offices at the fire museum with Central Station one and the fire training division at one single facility. Huff says the changes will not only clear up communication within the department, but she hopes it will mean lower insurance rates for Beaumont residents.

She said, "When you're at separate facilities even in town like this it causes communication problems and break downs and I think just having everybody there at one facility is gonna try to eliminate some of those issues and have us working more smoothly day to day."

So the citizens of beaumont get smoother and more cost effective protection.  The city's capital program manager, Brenda Beadle, tells KFDM the first project, fire station two, is budgeted for one million dollars.  Chief Huff says she's hoping station two will be ready in a year and a half.