PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — As Pasco County continues to grow, Pasco County Fire Rescue is finding ways to meet the needs of the community.
Like most people, Janet Rice has seen lots of growth where she lives.
"Lots of subdivisions growing up around us,” said Rice. “This street we're on now is a thoroughfare, and it used to just be a quiet two-lane street."
And it's something county leaders have seen too.
"It's growing just leaps and bounds,” said Ronald E. Oakley, the Pasco County Commission Chair.
Pasco County Fire Rescue spent Friday morning hosting a push-in ceremony at Station 16 unveiling their newest engine serving the Zephyrhills area, followed up by a grand opening of fire rescue Station 28 in Land O’ Lakes.
Chief Tony Perez said it will help greatly.
"Over one month's time in this general footprint, in Station 28's footprint, we ran 162 service calls in the month of October. So we drew 82 additional calls from Station 23, that's south of us, and 30 additional calls north of us at Station 22,” said Perez. “And then when those two units were out on servicing their area, we had 50 additional calls come in from outlying stations."
Officials said the location will help shorten response times in the Land O’ Lakes community.
“They’re needed all over Pasco County. You’ll see a lot of stations that have been around for several years,” said Oakley. “You’ll find them be, they’ll be distanced apart, but in the meantime all these years between when they were built and now, they have got more and more citizens in there, and the call time has lengthened out to be maybe 20 minutes or 25 minutes. Well, the fact of it is we put another station in, what I call an infill of stations, and then that cuts that time down to 10 minutes.”
The new fire station happens to be right in Rice's backyard.
"The response time means everything and just to be able to have them close,” said Rice.
