Westfield announces plans to build new fire station amid rapid population growth

WESTFIELD, Ind. — The town of Westfield is preparing to break ground on a brand new fire station in the coming month.

City leaders said the new fire station couldn't be built soon enough. Westfield's explosive growth over the years has created a critical need for additional firefighters.

“If you compare Westfield to our sister cities like Fishers or Noblesville, when they were similar in size, Fishers had five fire stations and Noblesville had seven,” said Westfield Mayor Scott Willis. “We have three in Westfield. So we’re behind. We’re not up to national standards in terms of fire stations per square mile.”

Westfield is a lot different than it was 20 years ago, and Fire Chief Rob Gaylor has seen that change since joining the department.

“Since then, we’ve seen our population more than double,” Gaylor said.

And if you look around Westfield, that growth shows no sign of slowing down.

“Every day goes by in Westfield and we are growing,” he said. “In the next five to six years, we expect to welcome up to 30,000 additional residents to our city.”

Naturally, when the population booms, so do the number of 911 calls. In fact, these calls have increased by more than 32% over the past five years.

“It puts a strain on the men and women in the organization,” Gaylor said. “So how do we manage that? We have to grow with the community.”

Westfield has just three fire stations, which span 56 square miles. City leaders have said that's not sustainable, especially since much of that land is developed over time.

“If we take the number of calls divided by the number of stations in the four major cities in Hamilton County,” Gaylor said, “Carmel averages 775 calls per station, Fishers averages 636, Noblesville averages 567 and Westfield averages 810.”

Chief Gaylor said Westfield may not get more calls than neighboring towns, but those communities have more fire stations to dispatch calls. If Westfield's fire crews are busy, other agencies often have to step in.

“We couldn’t do without them, quite frankly,” Willis said. “There have been critical moments where they’ve saved us because we just didn’t have the bandwidth to run a race.”

That's precisely why Westfield will begin construction on its fourth fire station in about a month. It will be located in the north of the city.

Mayor Willis and Chief Gaylor said this would help significantly improve emergency response.

“It’s a critical need, and when you think about public safety, when you have to call 911, every second counts,” Willis said. “And right now, our average travel times are just under six minutes per trip. National standards say we need to get closer to three and a half to four minutes per trip.”

Willis said he believes a new station would help reduce response times. Plans are also underway for a fifth fire station. The city is also in the early stages of planning for a sixth fire station.

The city of Westfield said its fourth fire station, Station 84, is expected to open in October 2025.

The city has already started hiring firefighters for Station 84 and will likely hire firefighters for Station 85 starting next year.