Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue’s new Raleigh Hills Station 70 will open its doors on Thursday, October 1, in the Raleigh Hills Professional Center at 8299 S.W. Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway.

Beginning tomorrow, Capt. Patrick Fale and Firefighter Will Coker, both paramedics, will begin responding to medical calls from the station on Medic Unit 70.

Unlike other stations within the District that operate around the clock, this station will allow TVF&R to provide targeted services to medical emergencies in a high-call-volume area during peak hours: Tuesday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Outside of these hours, emergency calls will be divided between nearby West Slope Station 65 and Progress Station 53.

Station 70’s immediate response area includes 5,979 addresses in West Slope and Raleigh Hills. Its two-member crew is expected to respond to an average of 1,300 emergency calls each year.

A community open house is set for Saturday, November 14, from 2 to 4 p.m. The celebration includes an ice cream social, station and medic unit tours, fire safety house activities for children, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Beaverton Area Chamber of Commerce.

The public is encouraged to attend the event and check out the unique features of this station, including its smaller size. At 1,950 square feet, Station 70 has a much smaller footprint than TVF&R’s typical station standard of 10, 540 square feet.

This station is also TVF&R’s first to have horizontal four-fold apparatus bay doors. Seconds count during an emergency, and these doors open in less than half the time of traditional overhead doors.

Transforming an existing building at the professional center into a TVF&R station was one of many projects partially funded by the November 2006 voter-approved $77.5 million general obligation bond for capital improvements across the District’s 210-square-mile service area.

Analysis of five years of response data between 2008 and 2012 showed that a station was needed at this exact location to meet service demands in the area. Of the 6,473 incidents reviewed in the station’s first-due area during that five-year period, 86 percent were emergency medical services-related.

The most frequent medical emergencies crews responded to in the area included reports of a sick person, fall, chest pain, breathing problem, or a motor vehicle accident with an injury.

Opening this station will improve response times in this area and allow TVF&R to uphold our citizens’ expectation of fast and effective emergency response.