25-04-2025
South Walton Fire District puts new fire engine into service
WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Engine 6 is the South Walton Fire District's first fire engine put into service within the past 25 years.
The $661,000 engine will help provide better service on the east end of the beaches.
'We've added ambulances over the years. But as this community has continued to grow out here, the exponential growth we're seeing along the eastern portion of our county is really requiring us to be focused on this,' Fire Chief Administrator Ryan Crawford said.
The station serves Seagrove Beach, Watercolor, Seaside, and Grayton Beach.
Over the past 4 years, Fire Station-1 has seen a 62% increase in calls. That's proven to be challenging at times.
'You know, one of the challenges we have is what we refer to as concurrency, where not one call happens and the engine that's here is tied up on a call,' Crawford said.
When several Inlet beach emergency calls occurred at once, a second truck from the Watercolor Station would respond, increasing response time to about 15 minutes.
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Engine 6 will be the second truck located at Station 1 and will put them much closer.
'The national standard is 8 minutes or less. 90% of the time, that requires us to put three engines, a battalion chief, and two ambulances, all at a given location, but it's hard to assemble all at one given place. So this is going to immediately allow us to fill that gap along this eastern portion much, much faster,' Crawford said.
The fire engine isn't the only new thing.
'We actually hired nine firefighters to put this truck in service. So we have a minimum of three firefighters per shift that will be on this truck,' Crawford continued.
The South Walton Fire District is in the process of building a new station near Serenoa Road, between stations 1 and 2.
Once it is completed, it will become the new home for Fire Engine 6.
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