Foundation and utility placement work is visibly underway for the Statesboro Fire Department's new, roughly $5 million Station 3, off Brannen Street Extension behind Lowe's. Fire Chief Tim Grams now gives a weather-cautious forecast for the station to be ready for use in July.

Around the time of the groundbreaking ceremony at the end of October, officials said Station 3 could be ready in May or June 2026, in other words just seven to eight months from start to finish. Then the SFD's 2025 annual report to Statesboro's mayor and council, delivered by Deputy Fire Chief Bobby Duggar during a Feb. 17 work session, stated, "Expected completion of construction of Station 3 is July 2026."

The Statesboro Herald asked Grams about this in a brief interview last week.

"Again, everything's up to Mother Nature, but right now we are on track for some time in July, which lines up with the delivery of that second aerial truck," Grams said. "So we're still optimistic that we're going to get this done. We meet with the contractors and project managers and architect every other week, so we've got solid communication and we're pushing forward, getting it done."

Expected costs

In June 2025, City Council awarded Lavender & Associates an initial $4.36 million design-build contract for the fire station and authorized up to $440,000 more for furniture and fixtures as well as for any "unforeseen issues" such as change orders in construction or removal of "unsuitable" soil. Thus, a sign at the site states $4.8 million for the construction cost.

However, the council had approved in December 2024 the city's $588,000 purchase of the 1.3-acre site on Brannen Street at Bernard Lane from Robbie Franklin LLC for the fire station. So if the site acquisition and contingency budget were included, the project could cost up to $5.39 million.

Design and funding

Lavender has worked with Frank D'Arcangelo of DPR Architecture on the design details.

According to the plans as described last fall, the new fire station will feature bays for two standard fire engines or larger trucks. The ground floor will include a front lobby and receptionist's area, offices, a gym, an activity room, a kitchen and laundry. The upstairs will contain the bunks, locker room and showers for firefighters, plus a dayroom with a microwave oven and refrigerator, two captains' rooms and a small study.

To provide up to $4.8 million needed for the construction phase, the city government first committed up to $1.1 million of current and accumulated revenue from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST, directly to the project. Then, in a special arrangement reported last fall, the city conducted a Sept. 3 "public sale" of the city-owned 1.3-acre fire station site to the Georgia Municipal Association.

As a GMA member city, Statesboro then borrowed $3.7 million for up to 20 years through the association's Bricks & Mortar Program, promising to repay with further SPLOST proceeds. But technically, until the loan is repaid, the GMA will own the fire station site, leasing it back to the city for a nominal amount.

New apparatus

The "second aerial truck" Grams mentioned will be the second of two trucks the Statesboro Fire Department ordered through a Sourcewell cooperative purchasing contract from Williams Fire and Equipment back in the autumn of 2024. The first, described as a brand-new 2024 Sutphen SPH 100-foot aerial platform, was delivered one year ago, in March 2025, and is in regular service.

That second truck, also manufactured by Sutphen, is a "quint" combination truck with fire-engine-type water pumping capability and a 75-foot telescoping ladder. Its July 2026 expected delivery is also noted in the "moving forward" section of the SFD's 2025 annual report, after Grams in September 2024 noted a typical 22-34 "build time" on orders for these custom trucks.

For the two "aerial" or long-ladder trucks, the combined price tag reported at that time was almost $3.7 million, with SPLOST also being the funding source for these purchases.

Transition year

2025 was an unusual year for the Statesboro Fire Department, Duggar noted in delivering the annual report to the city's elected officials in February 2026. The city's longtime agreement with the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners for the SFD to provide primary fire response outside the city limits to five road miles from the two existing stations ended last June 30.

This external "fire district" actually included a larger land area than the city limits, as officials had noted when negotiations to renew the intergovernmental fire service agreement broke down in early 2025.

However, as seen in a three-year breakout of calls for service that was included in the most recent annual report, the more built-up area within the city limits was always responsible for a large majority of the calls requiring the SFD's response.

Most calls within city

In 2023, the Statesboro Fire Department responded to 1,016 calls for service in the city, 401 calls in the five-mile district, and 57 "outside the district," meaning to the rest of the county or elsewhere that the SFD has a mutual aid agreement.

In 2024, the last full year of the city-county fire service pact — which included an automatic aid agreement that went beyond requested mutual aid — the SFD responded to 1,091 calls in the Statesboro city limits, 398 calls in the five-mile district and 56 calls beyond the district.

In 2025, when the mutual aid agreement ended halfway through the calendar year, the SFD responded to 1,174 calls in the city in the full year, 180 calls in the five-mile district during the first six months of the year, and 35 calls beyond the district all year. 

As shown in a chart in the report, last year's calls included just 153 actual fires and 94 rescues. As has long been the case, the highest number of calls, 670 of them, turned out to be "false alarms" from those made intentionally to miscues of automated alarms. Responding to another 113 calls, firefighters found "hazardous conditions" but no actual fire or disaster.

But there were eight "overpressure or explosion" incidents, 176 service calls of various types and 167 "good intent" calls. Six calls resulted from severe weather, and three were listed as "special incidents."

The department reported that last year's actual emergencies resulted in $1.17 million worth of property losses against properties with $133.92 million of pre-incident value, so that $132.75 million in property value, or over 99%, was counted as "saved."

ISO & response time

The SFD had worked with the Insurance Services Office — or ISO, a private company that supplies information to insurance companies — to complete an ISO fire services rating evaluation update in September. For its service area, the department had several years ago secured a second-to-best ISO rating of "2" on the scale ranging from 10 to 1, where "1" is best.

"We're still waiting on the results," Duggar said Feb. 17. "Right now we're ISO Class 2. We have a chance to stay at a 2 or go for a 1. We're still waiting on those results. Because of the five-mile district, we had to get it done with Bulloch County, and that has held up the process."

The SFD's average response time on calls last year was 4 minutes, 28 seconds from dispatch to arrival.

"So that's pretty good. The national average was around six minutes," Duggar said. "We do want to get that down; that's one of the reasons for Station 3 being opened up."