Grape Creek VFD accepting donations for new fire station
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — The Grape Creek Volunteer Fire Department has begun accepting online donations to fund the construction of a new fire station after increased development and rising population numbers were observed in the community.
The fire department announced on May 22 that it has set up an online donation portal to accept donations for the project. A QR code has also been created that routes users to the donation webpage when scanned.
According to the online donation portal, the department was faced with “no choice but to build a new fire station” after several development projects in Grape Creek began taking hold. These developments include three housing divisions, two solar farms and a new interstate highway currently under construction.
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Grape Creek VFD has expressed particular concern with the housing divisions and the hundreds of homes they have already brought and will continue to bring to the region. According to the department, the freshly constructed homes have been built without City fire code regulations since they are outside city limits, currently lack fire hydrants and lie 9 miles away from the fire department’s usual range of operation, making service exceptionally difficult.
“Local risk threat analysis includes 3 new rural housing divisions, in our immediate fire response
district, that has over 600 new construction homes already built (with another 800 homes plotted and planned to be built in the future), surrounded by heavy brush, and rolling hills, with ZERO fire hydrants built in these new rural housing divisions,” Grape Creek VFD said on its donation portal. “We provide exclusive fire protection to these new subdivisions;
the nearby city of San Angelo does not provide fire protection to these new subdivisions due to
their location being built outside the city limits.”
The fire department also cited an increase in traffic accident occurrences and the steady growth of the community’s population as being inciting factors for the creation of the donation portal. According to the department, its volunteer fire crew serves 18,000 people across 210 square miles, numbers it claims means that Grape Creek VFD “protects the most population, and the most homes and private businesses, than any other VFD in our county.”
Grape Creek VFD stated that its crew of 24 volunteer firefighters provides exclusive fire protection for several sites of critical infrastructure. These sites include a major water supply distribution system that connects the Permian Basin to Central Texas, multiple state power grid systems and four Grape Creek ISD campuses.
To donate to help fund the construction of a new Grape Creek VFD station, visit the department’s online donation portal or scan the QR code below.
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