KILLEEN, Texas — The City of Killeen is seeing neighborhoods pop up left and right, along with new streets and more commercial buildings too.
As Killeen continues to see growth, like the rest of Central Texas, the Killeen Fire Department is in a bigger demand with the same resources they currently have.
But as Killen Fire Chief James Kubinski says that has to change to avoid burnout while also being able to respond to a call quickly.
"Every second counts when somebody calls 911," he says.
Kubinski says the standard and acceptable time frame from when you call 911 to when the first engine shows up at your door, or the scene, is 6 minutes.
60 seconds or less for dispatch to tone out the crew, then 60 seconds for the crew to be rolling out the door.
The last four minutes is left for drive time, making station location key.
"Unfortunately, we can't do anything about stations and there are areas in the south central part of town that need a fire station very badly," Kubinski adds.
Killeen Fire currently has eight stations across the city. Kubinski says there aren't any issues with the north zones because it's more congested and shorter drive times. However, the south part of the city is seeing rapid growth and is very spread out.
"That four minute travel time - it's just not possible with the eight stations that we have in the area that has the most growth happening at the fastest rate." he explains.
The Texas A&M Central Texas area and west of the Killeen Police headquarters, hose are the areas the fire department is most worried about for the future.
New buildings, more houses, more traffic lights and traffic impacts the response time.
"All of those combined add into a lot more calls and that will lower our six minute response time 90 percent of the time drastically," Kubinski said.
The already standing stations are just too far for some of the newly developed areas, that's why Kubinski and the fire department need to add another fire station in the south region and maybe even a second new one further down the road.
Kubinski says the expansion areas are not seeing high call volumes yet and they're not as busy as you would expect so they're able to handle them now, they're just trying to stay ahead of the game.
The fire chief says it has to be right time for the city and also for the tax payers.
"You have to make sure that we're being responsible with the taxpayer dollars," Kubinski explained.
6 News reported a while back that Killeen's city leaders recognized that the fire department needed an upgrade. That's when they won big with the city's budget by getting a pay raise, funds for a new facility down the road and a new ambulance.
"We're going to have one station in town running two medic units which is not something you see very common across anywhere in the state of Texas," Kubinski explained. "Usually only on large departments, metropolitan areas. That's going to help keep the service getting there from spreading to thin for our employees and ultimately, biggest thing is getting the help to the door when somebody calls in an acceptable amount of time."
Kubinski hopes to have the ninth ambulance in service Jan. 1.
Killeen Fire is hoping to get a new station in the south central area of the city within the next two years pending city council's approval and the budget.