City Provides Relief For 20th-Busiest Fire Station In Country

TAMPA, FL — Tampa City Council member Luis Viera called for immediate relief for North Tampa’s Fire Station 13 after it was ranked by a national trade publication as having the 20th busiest call log in the United States.

“The statistics that I will be talking about, they demand relief, and they demand action,” Viera said at Thursday's city council meeting. He said the station is in dire need of both additional firefighters and equipment.

He said last year Station 13, located at 2713 E. Annie St. and assigned an area that includes Busch Gardens and the University Area, responded to 11,000 calls for service.

"It's one out of 23 stations, but one in seven calls citywide came from the range of Station 13," Viera said. "Station 13 had 5,300 runs, making it the 20th busiest station in the United States of America.”

Joe Greco, president of the firefighters' union, Firefighters Local 754, took the opportunity to urge the council to develop a citywide public safety master plan to provide better fire protection.

Except for the fire station in New Tampa, which opened in January 2019, he said the city hasn’t added a new station since 1989.

Greco said a master plan is crucial because there is no fire station planned in the Water Street District, which is now being developed.

At full build-out, Water Street Tampa will encompass two million square feet of office space, 3,500 residential units, 1,593 hotel rooms and one million square feet of retail/entertainment space.

With the growth in Tampa, Greco said more than a dozen new stations will be needed to reduce response times to the preferred four-minute response time.

The city council agreed to provide immediate relief to Station 13 and have the city undertake a master plan within 45 days to be used to determine what additional funds are needed.

See related story: New Tampa Celebrates Opening Of Long-Awaited Fire Station