Expansion in '08

Odessa firefighters will leave behind an unusually active spring 2008 fire season and a retired battalion chief to start the new year with a new home.

By the end of 2008, the Odessa Fire Department already built substations Four and Seven. The new Central Station, 1102 W. Second St., is scheduled to open Jan. 6.

Administrative Assistant Fire Chief Roger Boyd said the new stations will feature expanded truck bays meant to hold the larger modern firefighting equipment the city has been acquiring and will also have "drive-through" bays so that the engines won't have to back up to park inside the stations.

The old stations, Boyd said, had very small apparatus bays off of very busy streets and were not designed for the newer equipment. The firefighters also had to stop traffic to park the firetrucks.

"That causes a safety hazard for our firefighters," he said. "They (the old stations) have just served their purpose."

The department also promoted a new battalion chief in Kevin Doan, hired 20 new employees and lost seven others to retirement. To fill positions more quickly, Boyd said the department's hiring paramedics or firefighters and offering to cross-train them at Odessa College, Midland College or over the Internet.

On the EMS side, Assistant Fire Chief John Alvarez said the city and Medical Center Hospital started experimenting with induced hypothermia in October, where paramedics lower the blood temperature of patients that lost their heartbeat but were able to get it back again in order to better preserve them.

As far as fires go, Fire Marshal Detra White said the city had 15,248 9-1-1 calls, of which 834 were fire complaints for the 2007-2008 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. From January through Dec. 18, they investigated 141 fires, including 33 that were confirmed arsons. Even though the city didn't report any fire-related fatalities, Ector County had six deaths caused by fires, including one trailer fire in March 4 that claimed the lives of three children at 6617 W. Dunn St. in West Odessa.

Inside the city, the Jan. 5 blaze at Heap Equipment, 117 E. First St., caused an estimated $2 million in property damage as it reduced the business to ashes.

Grass fires were also unusually frequent during the dry spring season. Boyd blamed this on vegetation that "had a jump" because of the relatively abundant rainfall that reached Ector County in 2007.