The LaGrange Fire Department officially held a ribbon cutting for the opening of its Station 5 on Thursday on Vernon Road.

Not only is it great to see this project completed in fairly good time, it’s also going to be an important opening for the citizens of LaGrange. The city’s fire department already had a strong Insurance Service Office score of two. The lower the score, the better response times are, which means lower insurance premiums for residents.

When the fire station was first unveiled, one of the main reasons for its construction was to ensure the fire department kept its response times under seven minutes and 50 seconds.

It’s easy to forget that last August the LFD became only the tenth fire department in the state of Georgia to receive accreditation from the Commission of Fire Accreditation International.

Less than 250 fire departments around the country receive that accreditation. That accreditation was a several year process and included 51 recommendations that had to be accounted for in order to receive the honor.

Our point is that we have an efficient fire department, one that outside agencies have honored for its fast response times and other measures. An additional fire station can only help the LFD be more efficient and quicker at responding to calls, which is what really matters to citizens.

When a house is on fire, the difference in 5 minutes and 10 minutes can be life-altering and life-threatening. The LFD also responds to medical calls all day long, and actually has more medical calls than fire calls in a year. Like fire calls, a few minutes can be the difference in life and death.

We applaud the Callaway Foundation and WellStar West Georgia Health as well, as their land swap allowed for space for the fire station to be constructed.

The new station, one on the west side of town, can only be a good thing for LaGrange moving forward.