The new Liberty/Dowelltown Fire Hall is up and running and the DeKalb County Fire Department held an open house/ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility last Saturday afternoon. Liberty and Dowelltown officials joined with county officials for the event, along with the Sheriff’s Department, DeKalb EMS, State Representative Michael Hale, and area citizens.
Referred to as a DCFD district station, the new facility is located on 8.65 acres that used to consist on an old park. The abandoned site was jointly owned by the towns of Liberty and Dowelltown and was leased to the fire department for $1 for 99 years.
The new 55’ x 60’ building has four bays to accommodate Liberty Engine 65, a 2,500-gallon tanker truck, a 4-wheel drive brush truck, and an ambulance with DeKalb EMS. The facility also has plans to build a helipad for incoming air ambulances, which currently land at DeKalb West School of on the highway.
The fire hall was funded mainly through the American Rescue Plan. The county allocated $382,912 in ARP funding for the construction, with Tim Pedigo of Pedigo Construction awarded the building contract.
The site was designed to provide a better response time to the western portion of the county by not only housing the fire engine, but a tanker truck, brush truck, and an ambulance.
“We officially began operating out of this station on November 1,” DeKalb Fire Chief Donny Green told the crowd. “The engine has been here, and we have been responding to calls out of this station for a little over a week now. We are extremely grateful to everyone who has been involved in this project from start to finish.”
“The project and all the equipment located at this station has a value of about $976,000 and that does not include the land which was not purchased but leased by the county. Of that $976,000, $63,050 was the only amount that was used from local taxpayer funds. The rest of that, $912, 950 was funded by grants so this project cost DeKalb County about 6% to put down here while 94% of it was funded by state or federal grants. I would say that we made a good investment not just for today but for many years to come,” said Chief Green.
“I don’t want the community to look at this as just the Liberty Fire Station or the Dowelltown Fire Station or even a fire station. I want this to be your public safety building. If people are here and we have the doors open, we want the community to stop in and visit. We want you to know who we are and what we do. That’s important to have those relationships. EMS will also be here as a satellite station. We have also opened the doors to the sheriff’s department if deputies are out and about and need to stop in because we want this to be a public safety building for use by everyone,” Chief Green continued.
Representative Hale also spoke at the event, saying, “I want to say thank you to County Mayor Matt Adcock and the County Commission for the work in making this come to pass and also to County Fire Chief Donny Green for the vision of seeing something greater for the western end of the county. This is huge, not just for Liberty and Dowelltown, but for the entire western part of the county. I look forward to seeing the services that will be expanded out of this.”
DeKalb County Mayor Matt Adcock, was joined by Liberty Mayor Audrey Martin and Dowelltown Mayor Pam Redmon for the ribbon cutting, officially opening the facility. Woodmen of the World donated a flag and flagpole for the new station, and representative Tim Bumbalough led a ceremony in raising this flag.
