New Fire Station Houses Red Dragon; Grand Opening Monday

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FL -- In an effort to centralize Hillsborough County Fire Rescue’s Hazardous Materials Response equipment and team, a new Station 32 opens this month. It will house the county’s most sophisticated emergency response equipment, including the “Red Dragon,” a tool used to burn off flammable gasses.

On Monday, Feb. 25, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue will host a grand opening event complete with a tour of the state-of-the-art station and demonstrations of the county’s Level A Hazmat suits, the county’s foam truck and the Red Dragon.

The station at 6321 Harney Road, Tampa, also is home to HCFR’s Hazardous Incident Truck (or HIT truck) and a Quint truck – a quintuple combination pumper that serves as both an engine and a ladder truck. Located with quick access to both Interstate 4 and Interstate 75, and in the heart of the county’s industrial district, the station is ideally situated to rapidly respond to hazardous materials events.

The new Station 32 replaces a much smaller station near NetPark and consolidates equipment that was previously located in two different stations elsewhere in the central part of the county.

Hillsborough County officials, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Chief Dennis Jones and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Chief of Special Operations Robert Collins will be on hand to speak at 9:30 a.m. Station tours will begin at 10 a.m. Level A Hazmat suit demonstrations will begin at 10:15 a.m. and the Red Dragon will be demonstrated at 10:30 a.m.

(For more local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)