Staff photo / J.T. Whitehouse Breaking ground Friday afternoon on the $4.2 million addition to the Western Reserve Joint Fire District’s Station 92 are Assistant Chief Conner O’Halloran, Capt. Sean Guy, Bryan Horne and Ryan Hively, both from Hively Construction, Assistant Chief John Walsh, and WRJFD trustees Michael Thompson, Frank DeMain, Elinor Zedaker, Robert Dunham and Paul Williams.

POLAND TOWNSHIP — Ground was broken Friday afternoon on a new $4.2 million addition to Poland Fire Station 92, 7619 Youngstown-Pittsburgh Road.

It kicked off the last phase of the promise made to voters when they approved a levy in 2022.

“It happened around the COVID-19 years,” said Western Reserve Joint Fire District board chairman Michael Thompson. “Ambulance companies were going out of business and our residents approved a levy for our fire department to provide ambulance service.”

Since the 2.75-mill levy was passed in 2022 to bring in $1.1 million per year, the board has worked to bring ambulance service up to full speed. The board purchased ambulances and increased the fleet to four. The next step was increasing the staffing hours to 24/7 by using part-time people.

Since the move into ambulance service, fire Chief David “Chip” Comstock and the board of trustees had to make do with what they had. A classroom at Station 92 was converted to a sleeping quarters using Murphy beds, but it was far from an ideal situation.

Now, the final phase of the plan to provide 24/7 sleeping quarters for ambulance crews will become a reality with the new addition. It will allow for firefighters and ambulance crews to live at the station in comfort and always be ready to respond.

“Our promise was to provide full-time ambulance service,” Thompson said. “To do that we needed three things: personnel, equipment (vehicles) and a facility to work from.”

Assistant Chief John Walsh said the $4.2 million addition is expected to take about a year to finish. Drawings for the addition were presented at the groundbreaking, as well as the interior plans.