TOPEKA (KSNT) – The Topeka Fire Department (TFD) wants to relocate station one, six and 11 to help with response time, and it was discussed at Tuesday nights city council meeting.
This would be a three phase project. Station one and 11 are located in North Topeka, while station six is located in Oakland. A March 2021 Fire Commission Report recommended a new fire station near sixth and Fairlawn. The first phase would see station one relocated near that area.
Phase two would relocate station 11 in the area of NW Lyman Road and Topeka Boulevard to improve coverage in North Topeka, while phase three would relocate station 6 to the Oakland-Billard Park area, serving all of Oakland and the eastern portion of North Topeka.
“Our biggest goal in this is to be able to provide better care for the citizens of Topeka,” Deputy Fire Chief Antony Standifer said. “This presentation, it would give us the ability to be able to provide more, or better, response time to more citizens of Topeka. After these three phases, if we were to do this, it would pick up almost 27-hundred addresses in that four minute response time.”
TFD says relocating these stations would mean firefighters could get to around 77 percent of the city in four minutes or less. That’s five percent more space that could get covered without further delays.
No action was taken tonight, and there’s a lot more work to be done before that can happen. City Manager Robert Perez says he expects many more discussions to come, and if approved would be anywhere between a five to 15 year plan.
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