West Falmouth Fire Station Closing Next Year

FALMOUTH – The West Falmouth Fire Station will be closing next year, leaving the town with four stations. 

The closing is due to a recently negotiated contract between Falmouth and the Fire Fighter’s Union that says stations must have at least two fire and rescue personnel on a single piece of equipment before it can respond to a call. 

“That’s been a one man fire station since it opened in the 1930s,” said Chief Michael Small about the West Falmouth location. 

“It’s been a horrible deployment model for a number of years—for a long time. But come July 1 we’re no longer going to be able to do that.” 

The town is looking to build a new fire station somewhere in the northwest part of town, said Chief Smalls.

This station would consolidate the West Falmouth and the 70 year-old North Falmouth Stations into a station with modern technology that can serve the district more effectively. 

“It was built at the same time as the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges. It’s completely outdated. It’s been on the radar screen for the Fire Department for a long time.” 

Chief Small warned that the longer the town waits, the more expenses build up to replace the aging station. 

Reception to the plan has been mixed, with some fearful of the safety ramifications of losing a station even with the plan to build a new station elsewhere to service the district. 

“They’re concerned about response times, they’re concerned about losing what they’ve had, I understand. The station’s been in that village center for almost a hundred years,” said Chief Small. 

“I’ve requested some additional staffing in this year’s upcoming budget. Any of that additional staffing will go towards supplementing that northwest area, so we hope that with a modern fire station properly staffed in the proper location we can address those concerns,” said Chief Small. 

About Grady Culhane

Grady Culhane is a Cape Cod native from Eastham. He studied media communications at Cape Cod Community College and joined the CapeCod.com News Center in 2019.



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