'A big push': Panama City Beach Fire Department to finish 3 large-scale projects this year

PANAMA CITY BEACH − As the Beach continues to expand, millions of dollars are being poured into the city's fire department to improve response times and firefighter training.

According to Chief Ray Morgan of Panama City Beach Fire Rescue, the department has three large-scale infrastructure projects that are slated to be complete this year. With a combined price tag of approximately $16.5 million, they are a fire training tower and two new fire stations.

"We've made a big push over the last five years to really bring the department up to where it needs to be to be adequate for where the city is headed," Morgan said. "There's been a lot of focus out of the city's current administration to put money back into public safety."

The training tower project is slated to cost $1.2 million and will be located off of North Gulf Boulevard, behind Station 30. It should be complete sometime between late April and early May. Funding for the project was split between state grants and the city.

The tower will feature four stories designed to give firefighters different training environments. This will allow training for fires in residential, high-rise and commercial properties.

Of the two new stations being built, one will replace Station 31 and the other will replace Station 32.

The new Station 31 is being built in the footprint of the old Station 31, which was constructed in 1995 and is located at the city's municipal complex. Scheduled to be complete by about August, it cost about $8.1 million. The project was paid for by the city's reserve funds.

The new Station 32 is being built on more than 3 acres near Hutchison Boulevard and Alf Coleman Road, north of Shipwreck Island Waterpark. It will replace the outdated Station 32, which was constructed in 1986 and sits near the Walmart on Hutchison Boulevard (Middle Beach Road).

The Station 32 project cost $7.2 million, of which $3.6 million was paid for by state grants, with the rest covered by the city. It should be complete by about November.

With the two new stations, Panama City Beach Fire Rescue will have three state-of-the-art fire stations that all are built with storm-hardened infrastructure able to withstand natural disasters. In 2020, the city opened Station 30 − a $5 million project that began a recent wave of developments for the department.

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Morgan said that because the old Station 31 and Station 32 were not storm hardened, firefighters housed at each had to be evacuated for natural disasters, slowing the department's response times during such emergencies.

He also said that with the addition of a fire training tower in Panama City Beach, Beach firefighters no longer will have to travel over the Hathaway Bridge to train at Gulf Coast State College.

"They all go hand in hand," Morgan said of the projects. "Having a place where we can house our team that's safe, that we don't have to evacuate out of (is) huge. ... If we don't keep our responders safe, how can we expect them to take care of everybody else."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City Beach Fire to complete two stations and a training tower