TOLEDO, OH (Toledo News Now) - As of Friday, the Toledo Fire Department has nineteen fire stations open to protect the Toledo community.
The department and the north Toledo community gathered Friday to celebrate the long-awaited opening of Station 12 at the corner of Suder and Chase.
TFD says one of the biggest benefits will be improved response times for the neighborhood.
"This section of Toledo has been a little bit of a challenge for us, as far as getting timely response, so this really tightens that up," said TFD Chief Luis Santiago.
With Station 12 out of service, the fire department had 29,000 runs, but now with it reopened, they've eclipsed more than 55,000 runs. Chief Santiago says being able to celebrate the opening of station 12 is a great feeling, and that they're confident will help them serve the community better.
"Many other communities are really struggling to keep what they have open, and we've had the good fortune of being able to open another station, so this is really huge for us," he said.
Robert Schwanzl retired as assistant chief of TFD in 1998. He knows what the job entails, and he knows how important Station 12 is to the department. He says this is a tremendous addition to Toledo.
"I think the training of the men and women on the fire department, and their ability to respond as quickly as possible to whatever that emergency is... And this is going to happen in this neighborhood. There are calls here almost daily, and now they're going to be right on top of it," Schwanzl said.
The Station 12 rig was put into service at 3 p.m. Friday.
