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County Moving Forward Toward New Beulah Fire Station
December 14, 2015
Escambia County is moving forward toward new fire station for the Beulah community.
The Escambia County Commission has approved the purchase of the current 6,000 square foot fire station on six acres on West Nine Mile Road from the Beulah Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. for $300,000. The purchase price was the average of two appraisals for the county.
The county plans to replace the aging Beulah Fire Station with a modern facility, using Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds.
Unless most other county fire stations, the Beulah station has no showers, no bunk room or other facilities for firefighters to sleep as they man the station.
Current firefighters describe the station as a “big shed” that proved its inadequacies during the flooding last year and previous hurricanes. Many of Beulah’s 20 volunteer firefighters were crammed inside with no showers and no place to sleep.
Pictured top and inset: The current Beulah Fire Station on West Nine Mile Road. Picture below: Paint peels from the aging ceiling over trucks in the department’s bays. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Comments
10 Responses to “County Moving Forward Toward New Beulah Fire Station”
The county has already came out and said they dont want volunteers they want an all career department. So it doesnt matter if there are 2 volunteers or 100, if they want to convert it to career, they will because now they own it, and volunteeers could not do their jobs without the countys assistance….. funding, tools, apparatus, so the volunteers are at the mercy of the county
Innerarity Point, Bellview and Molino…really… those buildings are old, def not new in the least.. and they were built for the intentions of career companies…. after remodeling there were career crews in every single one… before they realigned and repositoned their people…… more tax money means more career firefighters……..watch…… give it 5 years there wont be a single volunteer firefighter in Escambia County
New stations built recently with volunteers. Innerarity Point, Bellview, Molino. For example. Perdido and P Beach were built after Ivan left them destroyed. This is a positive thing for Beulah.
The county is not pushing anybody out of there station they are trying to help the community by building a better place for the volunteers to work out of. The reason the other station got replaced with career crews is because of the LACK of volunteers not enough people to run calls so if u want to help stop the rise in ur taxes why don’t u go volunteer at ur local fire house.
First of all…. Its not going up for bidding or to be a community center. Second of all… the county did not buy it for the building, if you read they article, they bought it for the 6 acres of land that came with it….. The building will be utilized by firefighters during the construction of the new building. Once the new building is finished they will tear the old one down….. and it seems true that once the new building is complete, the volunteers will be pushed out for a career crew and once again our taxes will be raised again…. and if you doubt this, name me one station that was built brand new that houses volunteers, dont worry Ill wait!!! The new buildings are Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key and Osceola…..all career crews
Just wondering why in the world would escambia county spend 300,000 of my tax dollars on an old building to just to replace it? Why not just replace it without buying the old building?
Followed by more career crews. These guys will be pushed out just like other stations. Raising taxes because the County Fire Chief and IAFF doesn’t support ANY Volunteer personnel. Watch and see.
Id love to move my small engine shop here. Hope it goes up for bidding.
A community center would be nice !
It was nice to see Beulah getting some newer Fire Equipment to better serve the public. Now it will be rally nice to see the Firefighters in a new station to continue that quest to save lives and property, and to have a place to house and maintain the equipment, and a place for the firefighters to live in better comfort. I was once a member of Beulah, and spent many hours at the station. It was a nice station, built after the old station was burned down, due to arson. The station was built entirely from donations from companies in the area donating building supplies. It is nice to see that the station is still in service, a testament to the buildings construction by the hands of people that gave back to the community…
It is a shame that the community couldnt pull together and make this a community center. I know that it is not that old but there is alot of history in that building. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Twilley for their contribution.