The Portland neighborhood in Louisville is about to get a new firehouse. Fire Chief Greg Frederick led residents this morning on a tour of the new facility.
He says the new firehouse will replace a station that is more than 100 years old.
"In the old station you had the workbenches, locker rooms, and everything was out on the apparatus bay," says Frederick. "In the new house, everything’s in its place and it’s much more efficient."
Frederick says the new firehouse features single dormitories for firefighters. He says the feature is crucial in new firehouses because of the changing demographics of the city’s fire department."We don’t know what the makeup of the department will be as far as male and female, so instead of going in and building a male dorm and a female dorm, we just went with individual dormitories…it eliminates that whole problem," says Frederck.The new firehouse also includes energy efficient appliances and a geothermal heating system.
Frederick says it should be operational in the next three to four weeks.
The new Portland firehouse is part of the city’s fire department modernization plan originally announced in 2006.
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