CALDWELL, Idaho — For six years, Rick Read has called the Cedar Crossing neighborhood in southeast Caldwell home, where he is currently the HOA president.
Now, just across a dirt field from his neighborhood near Lake Avenue and Karcher Road, work began Thursday on a project he anticipates will keep his neighborhood safer: Caldwell's fourth fire station.
“We are very excited to have fire and first response so close…This is a huge, huge project and safety factor for our community,” he said.
The Cedar Crossing neighborhood has experienced emergencies where the response took much longer than may have been expected.
“Fortunately, it wasn't a bad emergency, but an emergency where it's been like 15, 18 minutes,” Reed said.
The new station is designed to help close that gap by putting an engine company directly in southeast Caldwell, an area where thousands of new homes, businesses and increased traffic are coming soon.
The fire department has been anticipating this, and understands that neighbors down here deserve response times as fast as anywhere else in the city.
“When you call 911, the expectation is that somebody shows up and they show up fast,” Fire Chief Bryan Daniels said.
Currently, a call to southeast Caldwell can take 12 minutes to reach because engines respond from the Ustick or 7th Avenue stations. The goal? Four minutes or less.
Deputy Chief of Administration Cory Gerard said those minutes are critical.
“Arriving in 4 minutes or less is a huge part of delivering that service and making sure that they aren't fighting a resource that we can't replace, which is time,” Gerard said.
Gerard said getting firefighters closer to residents can make a major difference during what can be the scariest moment of their life.
“Being able to be to somebody's house quickly when those moments feel like an eternity goes a long way towards our firefighters providing that high level of service,” he said.
The project follows Caldwell voter's approval of a fire stations bond in November 2023. The bond made the new station, along with the rebuilding of Fire Station 1, possible.
The city has also approved six new firefighters in 2026 to be trained and help fill fire station four.
As Caldwell's southeast side continues to grow, the promise of faster emergency responses will ease strain on the fire department and ease stress on neighbors.
Fire station four is set to open in Nov. 2027.
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