Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department opens its fifth marine station in the city

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department marked the opening of a new marine station on Wednesday.

Station 68 is JFRD’s fifth marine station in the city. It’s located off of the St. Johns River, near the Buckman Bridge.

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This new station will provide full-time marine coverage in the waterways of south Jacksonville.

“For a long time, we have lacked marine coverage on the southside,” said Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan. “This impacts not only the southside and this neighborhood but it really impacts the entire city.”

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The city allocated $9.5 million to open Station 68. Mayor Deegan said only $3 million was spent to open it and they were able to put those cost savings toward another station.

The response time to the south end of the St. Johns River used to be at least 25 minutes. That’s because the closest marine unit was in Metropolitan Park. Now Station 68 is just next to the Buckman Bridge.

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“Around the Buckman Bridge we have a lot of incidents, and that 25 minutes in our business, minutes equal lives, and so we have to get in this area quicker,” JFRD Chief Keith Powers said.

JFRD said there is just one boat at Station 68 and it has fire pumps on board, along with advanced life support, and more.

“Another neat tool that is on that boat that we saw yesterday with the Baltimore tragedy is it has Side-Scan Sonar, which gives us the ability should somebody go in the river we can turn that side scan on and are able to find them and make a rescue,” Chief Powers said.

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