By BROOKE SNAVELY
CENTRAL OREGON DAILY
The City of Redmond is proposing an urban renewal district along the congested south end of Highway 97.
Among many elements being considered is a new fire station in that rapidly growing part of town.
On January 19, a woman died in a structure fire in the Mt. View Mobile Home park south of Redmond.
It took firefighters about 10 minutes to get there from the downtown fire station.
Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Puller says if they’d started from a closer location, the outcome might have been different.
“If we had a station in the south end of the district, we could have potentially been on scene in under six minutes,” Puller said. “Would that have saved the resident or not? I don’t know. It would have increased the chances of that resident surviving.”
A new fire station is one of many improvements proposed in a 1,300-acre urban renewal district between Veterans Way and the Yew Avenue interchange on south Highway 97 in Redmond.
“It’s going to cost anywhere from $8-10 million to finish a station in there,” Puller said. “We currently do not own property in there. We are going to have to identify a property and then also staff that station with personnel and apparatus to make it work functionally.”
The proposed fire station might resemble the one in Terrebonne, a 4-bay facility housing firefighters and paramedics available 24/7 for medical emergencies, wildland and structure fires.
“We know that growth is going to continue,” Puller said. “When that growth continues, we know the call volume is going to continue.”
Puller said a bond measure to finance construction of a new fire station on the south end of Redmond will likely be put to voters within a few years.
