- December 8, 2025
The Flagler County Commissioners and Fire Rescue Chief Mike Tucker celebrate the groundbreaking for the new Fire Station 51. Photo by Sierra Williams
The Flagler County Commissioners at the groundbreaking for the new Fire Station 51. From left to right: Pam Richardson, Kim Carney, Chair Leann Pennington, Greg Hansen and Andy Dance. Photo by Sierra Williams
Fire Station 51 personnel. Photo by Sierra Williams
The Flagler County Commissioners and Fire Rescue Chief Mike Tucker break ground for the new Fire Station 51. Photo by Sierra Williams
For the second time in a matter of weeks, Flagler County is breaking ground on a new fire station – this time, located in west Flagler County.
The new station will cut down on emergency response times to the Daytona North area, Fire Chief Mike Tucker said. The station will also be designed in a way that is safer for fire personnel, he said, to keep them separated as much as possible from “the carcinogens that they’re exposed to” on the job.
“It represents change,” Tucker said. “It represents a new direction that we’re going as an organization.”
Flagler County has four full-time fire rescue stations, including the current Fire Station 51 in Espanola, located at 3055 County Road 13. The FCFR also shares six stations with Flagler Beach and Palm Coast, and two volunteer fire stations, one of which is in Korona in Bunnell.
The new Station 51 will be located at 245 C.R. 305, next to the Flagler County road and bridges department building.
The new facility will be a one-story, 11,000-square-foot building with three equipment bays. It is estimated to cost $10.36 million and will include a Flagler County Sheriff’s Office substation, according to a previous Flagler County press release.
In her ceremony remarks, Flagler Commission Chair Leann Pennington said the design has been two years in the making and is “smart forward-thinking prototype that will serve as a standard for future stations.”
“Keeping our residents safe is always our top priority,” she told the gathered crowd, "and this station is strategically placed between existing facilities to ensure faster response times and stronger service for our Western Community.”
Pennington told the Observer this is another step to ensuring the west side of Flagler County has access to emergency services, especially as more people have been moving out into the county countryside.
Fire Station 57, at 89 East County Road 2006, will remain open as well. The county will next turn its eye to opening a fire station in Cody’s Corner, on the southwest portion of Flagler County, she said.
“We’re just trying to give them the services that they really need out here,” Pennington said. “Police, fire and rescue. It takes 30 minutes or more sometimes to get [out here.] So I think the community is really excited about this.”
Tucker said that in fiscal year 2024-2025, Flagler County Fire Rescue ran 20,111 calls and has seen an overall increase of 3% in call volume countywide.
Using modeling programs, Tucker said, the county identified the trend in service calls and chose the C.R. 305 location as the spot for a new fire station.
The west side of Flagler County already has a fire engine average response time is 12 minutes while the rest of Flagler County is below 8 minutes in response. Tucker said much of that is because a majority of the call volume is from within Palm Coast.
Tucker said the goal is to be under a 10-minute response time at least 90% of the time county-wide.
There’s a lot of factors that go into cutting down response time, he said: how soon 911 is called, a good alerting system, the location of the stations and even how a fire house is designed.
The design is part of what makes this fire station project so special. Tucker said this fire station will be designed so the firefighters are not living on the opposite side of a building from the fire engines and ambulances.
“You want to make sure they’re in close proximity to each other,” he said. “This station is designed in that manner.”
Palm Coast Fire Chief Kyle Berryhill attended the groundbreaking ceremony, celebrating the success of the city’s emergency response partners. All the municipalities in Flagler County have an interlocal agreement to provide automatic aid to a call – that is, whichever unit is closer to responding, automatically responds, across jurisdictions.
“As the fire service is beginning to catch up to the growth that we’ve had in Flagler County,” Berryhill said, “things like this, it’s a really exciting time for Flagler County Fire Rescue.”
