Port Wentworth clears land for new fire station

The City of Port Wentworth and the fire department announced this week that land had officially been cleared for a third fire station. The new facility will be on Highway 30; two other stations are located on the east side of Highway 95.

“Our city has seen substantial growth,” City Manager Steve Davis said. “We grew by 140% from census to census, and we don’t have a station on the west and north sides of (I-95), so this location is perfect. We’ve got the property for our park right there and it’ll help with the response times for the north end.”

Although the city does not have a contractor in place yet, they will seek a bid late September or the beginning of October. The ground should be broken in January 2024, with a completion expected in April to June of 2025, according to Davis.

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About 20 years ago, there were only about 2,000 people in Port Wentworth, Davis said, and now it's a city of about 13,000 and growing. It takes more equipment, people, and training to handle the different scenarios the city has found themselves in.

“We need to have professional firefighters with the the capability and equipment to handle structural fires, industrial fires, car accidents, medical calls,” Davis said. “It takes people, it takes training, equipment and new stations. Quite honestly, we probably will have a fourth station in the next 10 years.”

The fire department has also hired nine new firefighters, and have three more they expect to train before the station opens, Davis said.

Fire Chief Lance Moore said that the fire department's call volume statistically increases 10% per year.

“To keep up with that demand, we just need more strategically placed stations,” Moore said.

The new 18,306-square-foot station is state of the art, according to Moore.

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“There’s living quarters, a new emergency operations center for storms or natural or manmade disasters,” Moore said. “It’s a place where the command staff can assemble, make decisions. It’ll actually house our emergency management team as well, so these are all things that we need moving forward with the city.”

Davis said the new fire station is a critical investment.

“It’s critical to service our needs and maintaining our level of service and response times,” Davis said. “I think the residents will be very happy with the service that comes out of that facility.”