The Lee County Board of Commissioners approved the sale of a 7.6-acre plot off Williams Avenue to the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District to be used as the location for a training facility.
The fire department said the site will allow for multi-company scenarios while keeping crews inside the district. Currently, individual crews are sent out of Lehigh Acres to other facilities in the county for required training, something that is detrimental to both firefighters and the community, as it takes a station out of service while also not providing our firefighters with the opportunity to train as a team for their response to structure or other fires.
The new site is large enough to house a training facility and serve as a site for a future fire station (the nearest fire station to this site is approximately 4 miles away).
This training facility was initially planned for the large parcel of land behind Station 102, but that land was determined to be better suited for sale as commercial property.
While construction on the training facility is scheduled to begin in 2024, a new station would not be added to the location in the near future. Currently, a site at the corner of Leonard Blvd S and Owen Ave is in development for the next scheduled fire station, Station 107. New station sites are determined by call volume and identified needs within our Fire District.
Fire officials said the fire district is experiencing an increase in new construction as well as a significant population increase. Within the last ten years, the fire district has seen overall call volume increase from 10,534 in 2013 to 16,746 responses in 2022, an increase of almost 59% in less than ten years.
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