Cedar Hill Fire Station No. 4 opens in Lake Ridge Parkway area

by Steve Snyder of TODAY Newspapers

If Cedar Hill residents have seen a few less fire engines rushing to the southwest part of the city recently, it's not because emergencies there have suddenly dropped, although the Cedar Hill Fire Department would certainly appreciate that.

Rather, it's because Fire Station No. 4 at 15105 Lake Ridge Parkway, has opened.

Chris Tancred, one of three shift captains at the new station, talked about what the station means to residents.

“It means a lot better response for the southern part of the city, and for Grand Prairie,” he said. “The two cities working together is pretty much unprecedented.”

Tancred said the new station would drop response times by three or four minutes in Cedar Hill and more for Grand Prairie. It used to take Grand Prairie firemen 8-20 minutes to get to houses in the area Tancred said.

In Cedar Hill, Fire Chief Steve Pollock said homeowners insurance rates for the Lake Ridge area should drop after the next time insurance auditors visit the city.

Cedar Hill swore in eight new firefighters at its April 14 Cedar Hill City Council meeting, so the station opened up with full staffing.

Its brand-new Pierce engine has Advanced Life Support paramedic capabilities, Tancred said. It can do everything a Mobile Intensive Care Unit modern ambulance can do except transport patients to a hospital, and an MICU ambulance will come to the station in the future, as will a brush truck for fighting grass fires.

Tancred, who said the first couple of days at the new station had been hectic, admitted he had little idea of how much work went into opening a new station.

“First was getting personnel. The city allowed us to hire people early,” Tancred said.

Related to that was getting three shift captains and six drivers for the station.

Then was the engine. Tancred says it takes about a year to get a fire engine built to a particular fire department's specifications, completed.

And, the radios had to be tested, not only for compatibility with the Southwest Regional Communications Center, the emergency dispatch for Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Duncanville, but also with Grand Prairie's 911 dispatch.

“The radio system has been a challenge because of the hills and valleys,” Tancred said.

Tancred has been a captain for a number of years and worked at all three other fire stations in Cedar Hill. He explained why he was moving to Station No. 4.

“I helped, with several other people, on the (station) design and the engine, so it was nice to see it come together,” he said.

The Cedar Hill and Grand Prairie city councils approved an interlocal agreement for joint funding construction and facility costs for Fire Station No. 4 in February 2007.

Under the agreement, the two cities are equally splitting the costs of construction, land and equipment apparatus. Pollack said this included ongoing building maintenance costs.

Cedar Hill will pay 75 percent of ongoing facility and personnel costs, with details of these costs to be reviewed every two years, based on relative residential development in both cities. While most of the current development in the service area is in Cedar Hill, at build-out in both cities that ratio is expected to be 50-50.

The agreement is for 10 years, and has an automatic two-year rollover basis if neither city objects.

The Cedar Hill Fire Department will be responsible for staffing and operating the fire station and serving designated areas of Grand Prairie as well as Cedar Hill.

As far as service, Grand Prairie's 911 dispatch will handle calls from the Grand Prairie service area, which will then forward them to the station.