A fire engine, rescue unit and tanker are housed in Fire Station 76 near the Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park. | Eric Prosswimmer/JFRD
Published on June 24, 2025 at 3:19 pm
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A new fire station to serve the growing Northside communities near the Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park has officially opened, nine months after ground was officially broken for Fire Station 76.
The new station becomes the third firefighting facility in the northeast corner of Duval County, joining others in Oceanway and North Oceanway.
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It also speeds up response time to existing subdivisions, and those being built along Cedar Point Road, as well as Grover and Boney roads, where scrub pine and sand used to exist.
“If you look at the dynamics of our fire stations, you had two stations on the island, but they are very far apart from each other,” Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department Capt. Eric Prosswimmer said. “They don’t serve a very densely populated area, but as that area grows, now the response times are quicker rather than sharing a load.”
Prior to last fall’s placement of the mobile home that was the first – and temporary – home to Fire Station 76, fire officials said that there was a pretty large gap in coverage for anyone living there between Station 45 – eight miles away on Sawpit Road – and Station 49 six miles away on Yellow Bluff Road.
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Now the new station is home to a fire engine staffed by four firefighters, plus a rescue unit with two paramedics, and a tanker with one firefighter, Prosswimmer said. With the temporary station, and the permanent facility now, nearby neighborhoods saw their Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating go from Class 10 (the lowest) to Class 1 (the best) since the homes are within 5 road miles of a fire station.
Station 76 cost about $7.7 million, the latest in a series of fire stations opened or under construction in the city in recent years, including Station 22 on Lenox Avenue and Station 47 in the Pecan Park area of far North Jacksonville.
Marine Fire Station 68 opened in March 2024 in a renovated home in the Beauclerc neighborhood. And construction is underway for Station 39/Marine 35 in Downtown off Gator Bowl Boulevard. The marine station will open in 2026, replacing one formerly housed at the former Kids Kampus just west of Metropolitan Park, and now temporarily sited at Arlington Lions Club Park.
Tuesday’s ribbon cutting was the last for Fire Chief Keith Powers, who retires at the end of June.
