Colorado fire department to break ground on new station to accommodate community growth

One community in Douglas County is preparing to break ground on a new fire station.

Castle Rock Fire and Rescue Department's Station 156 will be located in the northeast portion of town. 

The new station will serve Cobblestone Ranch and Terrain, two growing subdivisions. It will include a 13,000-square-foot fire station and a 13,000-square-foot logistics center.

"When I started 1986, we had two fire stations," Fire Chief Norris Croom told CBS Colorado. "We were an all-volunteer department."

In the 40 years Croom has been with the fire department, a lot has changed.

"7,500 people were in town," Croom said. "Right now, we're at about 87,000 people, and this will be our sixth fire station."

Croom is presently the chief of a fire department that's four times bigger and serves a much larger community.

"Just mind boggling that it's grown so fast," said Judy Barnett, who lives in the Castle Oaks community.

For 30 years, Barnett has also watched the town grow from her backyard.

"Just overnight, you look out, and there's another house," Barnett said.

Her rural home in northeast Castle Rock is getting more suburban, with the addition of communities like Cobblestone Ranch and Terrain.

"The Terrain pretty much surrounds us on the west side," Barnett said.

Croom says his department is being stretched thin in those areas.

"We're seeing response times as long as 14 to 15 minutes," Croom explained.

But, soon, Castle Rock Fire and Rescue will break ground on a solution, a new fire station on Castle Oaks Drive.

"We believe that we'll be able to cut those response times in more than half," Croom said.

Fleet maintenance work is done at Castle Rock's public safety training facility, but that work will soon have a new home. A logistics center will be built along with the new fire station.

Croom says the logistics center will provide a centralized location for equipment and space for maintenance work.

"As far as our equipment is concerned, we've got it stored throughout all of our different stations," Croom said. "So, if you need hazmat equipment, you might have to go to Station 5. If you need wildland equipment, you might have to go to this station. We'll be able to take all of that out of those stations and consolidate it into one central location."

The total cost of the facility is $21.5 million. It's being paid for with TABOR timeout dollars, a general fund loan, capital impact fees and certificates of participation. Twelve firefighters will be needed to staff the new station. Croom says the money to hire more firefighters comes from a ballot measure passed by Castle Rock voters in 2024.

"We do worry about fires as of lately. We're surrounded by scrub oak," Barnett said. "As dry as it is, it, you know, and it wouldn't take much."

The new Station 156 is just minutes from Barnett's home, and will serve her community, as well as Terrain and Cobblestone Ranch.

"I think that's great because, of course with all the growth around here, there's a lot more chance of having a fire," Barnett said. "The hard thing about growth is all the people, but then that good thing is that we get those kind of amenities."

The station will break ground next week, and it's expected to be operational in 2027.

"As the town continues to grow and as the community continues to grow, us being able to keep up with that growth is significant," Croom said.