Fire Station 21 Dedication and Open House
DATE: Saturday, December 3
TIME: 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.
LOCATION: Fire Station 21, 7304 Greenwood Avenue North
On Saturday, December 3, the Seattle Fire Department, in partnership with Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) and Seattle Firefighter Union, Local 27 will dedicate Fire Station 21. For two hours, the fire station will be open to the public for tours.
The brand new state-of-the-art facility is more than 65 % larger. The project increased the building size from 4,925 square feet to 8,150 square feet. The original Fire Station 21 was built in 1951 and was too small to accommodate modern fire engines and staffing.
The new Station 21 is built to withstand an earthquake, and has a backup generator that can power the station during major emergencies. The station houses Engine Company 21 and the Fire Department’s Multiple Casualty Unit, which is specially equipped to treat a large number of medical emergency patients.
Improvements to Station 21 include a decontamination facility, individual bunk rooms, increased storage capacity and a large apparatus bay designed to accommodate modern firefighting equipment.
Housing an officer and three firefighters, the station serves the Phinney Ridge, Green Lake and Greenwood communities. Station crews respond to approximately 1500 emergency calls a year.
In 2003, Seattle voters approved the Fire Facilities and Emergency Response Levy, which was designed with lessons learned from disasters such as the Nisqually earthquake, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
The Fire Levy is the biggest undertaking in the last 40 years to upgrade, replace, and modernize fire stations and emergency responses. The project is designed to make Seattle safer in an emergency–and every day.
The $167 million levy is helping Seattle make tremendous progress on getting prepared including:
• Rebuilt or upgraded14 of 32 neighborhood fire stations to better withstand earthquakes and ensure that the city’s emergency responders are available to help when they are needed most.
• Opening the city’s new state-of-the-art Fire Station 10, Fire Alarm Center, and Emergency Operations Center, located in a 60,333 square foot complex, completed in 2008.
• Added two new fireboats, the flagship Leschi, delivered in 2007, and the smaller fire and rescue boat, Engine 1 that went into service in 2006.
• Created a new Joint Training Facility for firefighters that opened in 2007.
• Hardened hydrants at city reservoirs to provide emergency water supplies by allowing firefighters to draw water directly from reservoirs in an emergency.
• Installed emergency generators at six community centers.
