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Feasibility study recommends new north-side satellite fire station at city-owned site
Summary
A consultant hired by the City of Fond du Lac recommended designing and constructing a north-side satellite fire station on city-owned property at 365 North Main Street to improve response-time coverage toward NFPA 1710 benchmarks; the study estimated a ~12–20 percentage point improvement in 4-minute coverage for parts of the city.
City Manager Moore and Fire Chief Garretson presented a feasibility analysis on June 4 that recommended designing and constructing a new satellite fire station on the north side of Fond du Lac to improve response-time coverage.
Jim Schmidt, senior emergency services specialist with 5 Bugles Design, told the council the firm's GIS modeling found coverage gaps north of the city under the three-station model and that adding a fourth station would substantially improve four-minute arrival metrics. "Irreversible brain damage can occur within 4 to 6 minutes," Schmidt said, explaining the importance of the four-minute response benchmark used in industry standards.
Schmidt said the study compared actual incident locations (2021–2024) and drive-time maps. Under the three-station baseline, the study reported roughly 47.8% of the city's response area meeting the four-minute drive-time goal and about 65.6% of historical incident locations meeting that benchmark. With a fourth station placed on city-owned land near 365 North Main Street, the model showed coverage increasing to roughly 59.7% for the response-area map and about 86% for incident locations.
The consultant proposed a compact, operationally efficient satellite station with a program of about 12,557 square feet sited on roughly one acre; the conceptual layout showed space for three to four apparatus bays, a response apron and living quarters sized for a multi-unit base. Schmidt said the plan was sized to be functional now and to accommodate future needs.
On staffing, Schmidt and Chief Garretson said the design assumes existing department personnel would be reallocated rather than immediate additional hires. The firm cautioned that meeting NFPA 1710 benchmarks across the entire city would likely require additional stations beyond a single new facility but identified the north-side site as a strategic single-station improvement that avoids overlap with existing stations.
The study noted ancillary community benefits: faster water-rescue responses on the lakeshore, closer response to higher-density older neighborhoods that lack modern fire protection, and improved equity in service for residents, students and institutions on the north side. Council members asked about long-term planning and cost inflation; Schmidt said construction-cost escalation of roughly 5–7% annually was a reasonable planning assumption and that the city already owning the property reduces acquisition expense.
Schmidt recommended the council direct staff to proceed with design and inclusion in the capital improvement plan; no formal vote on station construction was taken at the June 4 meeting. Chief Garretson said the item will appear in the department's upcoming CIP and budget discussions for further council consideration.
