Fire Station Location Project

Fire Departments across the country are in transition. The three main reasons include challenges in:

  • recruiting and retaining non-career firefighters
  • achieving best practices for firefighter health and safety
  • accommodating modern firefighting equipment, training, and operations

Golden Valley is no different. In 2016, the Golden Valley Fire Department (GVFD) completed a study to identify what it needs to do to continue to provide the community with high-quality, fast, and efficient emergency services while being fiscally responsible with taxpayer funding. This was followed in 2020 by a study of all City facilities to determine future needs and opportunities.

Location, Location, Location

The City’s three current fire station locations are not geographically optimized for today’s updated highway system. Station 3 provides coverage for Minneapolis, while Station 2 (Turners Crossroad) no longer connects to main roads but also provides coverage into St Louis Park. Renovating existing stations is not feasible due to costs and restrictions posed by the current site sizes.

To improve efficiencies and response times, the City needs to consolidate Stations 2 and 3 to one remote fire station along the Hwy 100 corridor.

This fall the City will begin a process to select a site for a new remote fire station, a priority determined by a 2021 analysis of all of its facilities and how they meet community needs.

Community Engagement

The City hosted multiple public information open houses in February 2023 to gather feedback from community members and to update residents on the status of the project. Residents were also asked to take a survey to share input.

Open Houses

  • Wed, Feb 1 | 4–6 pm at Brookview Golden Valley (316 Brookview Pkwy)
  • Thur, Feb 2 | 6–8 pm at Fire Station 3 (3700 Golden Valley Rd)
  • Thur, Feb 9 | 6–8 pm, online Via Webex

Survey

Take the survey here.

  1. Recruitment and Retention

Golden Valley’s fire stations were established to support a paid on-call staffing structure, which is no longer sustainable in today’s culture. Fire departments nationwide are finding it more and more difficult to recruit and retain paid on-call firefighters due to increased family and job obligations. This is also making it more difficult to respond to fire calls within Industry response-time standards.

The 2016 study concluded Golden Valley needs to move from a three-station paid on-call staffing model to a two-station duty crew staffing model. To accommodate this, the City needs facilities to house firefighters 24 hours a day.

station-location-chartIn response to recruiting challenges and retention issues, in March 2022 the GVFD began staffing duty crews, rotating between the three fire stations. Each crew includes 3–4 paid on-call firefighters scheduled from 5–11 pm Mon–Fri, with full-time GVFD staff (chief officers and fire inspectors) covering 8 am–5 pm Mon–Fri.

The table (right) shows the difference in response numbers and times for paid on-call and duty crew models. As the GVFD continues to shift to a full-time duty crew staff with two stations, numbers for call response and response times are expected to continue improving.

The duty crew model has also enabled the GVFD to respond to an additional 23 types of medical calls, which were previously handled by Golden Valley Police Department and ambulance services.


  1. Health and Safety
  1. Equipment, Training, and Operations