Hanover considers second fire station

HANOVER -- Hanover is looking to build a second fire station on the north side of town officials say is needed to properly accommodate a growing population.

"The idea would be to build a fire station that not only meets the current need, but also meets to future needs of the community," Hanover Fire Chief Jeffrey Blanchard said.

For years now, Blanchard said he has been hoping to build a new station on what right now is a vacant, wooded lot on Webster Street, across from Hackett's Pond.

That location would ensure that members of the fire department could respond to calls in North Hanover within six minutes. That six-minute time frame is recommended by the National Fire Protection Association, the American Heart Association and the Insurance Services Organization.

All firefighters in the Hanover department are also paramedics, so the department responds to medical emergency calls as well as fires.

"Seconds count," Blanchard said, going on to explain that the American Heart Association points to six minutes or less as the best time frame to ensure someone survives a medical emergency like a cardiac arrest or anaphylactic shock.

Blanchard added that building fires can double in size every minute, meaning longer response times can result in more damage to residents' homes and more belongings being destroyed.

The fire department's headquarters are well-situated to reach almost the entire town, he said, but North Hanover remains the exception.

In October, Blanchard told the board of selectmen his department responds to only 34.2 percent of calls in North Hanover within six minutes or less, compared to 65.5 percent of overall calls in the town. Some calls had response times of eight or 10 minutes.

"So even if there's no traffic on the road, by the time someone realized there's an emergency, calls 911, the call is processed, and we get in our vehicles and arrive at the scene, it's just impossible to get there in under six minutes," Blanchard said.

The project has stalled so far because the lot where the town is looking to build is currently tangled up in land court, Blanchard said. The land is technically owned by a large group of heirs to the original owner, and land court is requiring the town to contact each of the heirs before it can take possession of the land.

That process should be complete within the next several months, Blanchard said.

Blanchard said the new station would not require the town to buy more ambulances or fire apparatus, or to hire more staff. The department would instead re-allocate its existing members and equipment.

Hanover Town Manager Joseph Colangelo said the town has spent about $20,000 on potential architectural designs for the project. That money came out of $44,000 allocated by town meeting in 2015.

Once the town formally owns the intended building site, it will assemble a committee to determine things like the size of the proposed building and funding sources, and make recommendations to the board of selectmen and town meeting, Colangelo said.

"Those are things we would really start wrestling with the day after we acquire the land," he said.

Reach Audrey Cooney at acooney@wickedlocal.com.

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