Mayor, Fire Chief Seek New Fire Station For East Tulsa

The Tulsa Fire Department announced on Friday how it plans to use Vision money if voters approve the tax proposal in April.

The fire department would get around $70 million in sales tax dollars over 15 years. And one of the biggest needs is building and staffing a new fire station.

We are here at Station 27 in east Tulsa.

It's not only the busiest station in the city, but it is the busiest in the state.

A big chunk of Vision funds would be used to build a fire station in the area to help cover the constant calls.

City leaders gathered at Station 27 to announce how they plan to use the $70 million.

One of the top priorities would be hiring 65 additional firefighters, adding a fourth firefighter to trucks at 15 stations across town.

"You can think of anything that you do around your house or anything else, if there is two people doing it, you can do twice as much as one person,” TFD Ray Driskell said.

The fourth firefighter would go to stations that only have one truck that responds to calls.

“The goal is to beef up those single company stations, we call them," Driskell said.

Driskell said adding a fourth firefighter to some trucks would allow the fire department to respond more efficiently to fires, like the one at Savannah Landing Apartments on Friday morning.

"I had 15 trucks there,” Driskell said. “I don't need 15 trucks at an apartment fire, if it's just a routine apartment fire like it was this morning. I need seven, but I need four on those trucks so we can get the number of people there quickly."

The remaining, 20 firefighters would staff the city’s newest fire station, Station 8 in east Tulsa.

A map shows the area Station 8 would respond to. Right now, it's covered by two stations, including Station 27.

There is some bond money available to help fund the construction, but Driskell says it's not much.

“There's not even enough there to start all the engineering work because not all the money is available yet,” he said.

If the Vision money is approved, it still would take about two years until we'd see Station 8 up and running.

Some of the remaining money would go to the Tulsa Fire Academy.