LEHI, Utah — Fire Station 84 officially opened in Lehi on Thursday. Two girls watched the construction for over a year and were excited to finally get a peak inside.
"Every day on the way to school, we'd watch it get built, cause we'd drive by it,” said 9-year-old Marlie Leavitt. "It was like really small and it got really big."
When they first saw the construction, the girls would place bets on what they thought the building would be.
"Sunny, what did you think it was?” Marlie asked her 5-year-old sister. “McDonald's,” replied Sunny.
“We've been watching this for a long time, and to actually see it put together, see the inside, how nice it is, all the nice people here, really fun,” said Kadie Leavitt, their mom.
On Thursday, the community was invited to the hose-cutting ceremony and to tour the fire station.
Marlie and Sunny got to explore every corner with their mom and even trained at the gym like real firefighters.
"Sunny, do you know what firefighters do?” asked Marlie. “Put out fires,” replied Sunny.
Lehi City Fire Chief Jeremy Craft said that for the past 2 years, the average response time for incidents on the west side of the ciy has been about 12 minutes. Since this new fire station opened about a month ago, those response times are now about 4 and a half minutes. So for families like the Leavitt who live close by, are excited about this in their community.
"It looks really good and it looks cool,” added Marlie.
So many kids also put on their fire helmets and made the new station their playground.
"We might have some future firefighters here,” said Chief Craft. “And if nothing else, we've opened them up so that they understand that we're their friends, and that opens the gate so we can educate them on fire safety, medical stuff, and heaven forbid we go to their house and they need us, we're friendly faces to them now"
"It gives them the reality of it,” said Kadie. “You always just see it on TV or see it on the side of the road but to actually have them learn about it and see it first hand, it’s very fun to see them."
And maybe, this experience has sparked some new career dreams. "Thank you for being so awesome and helping people,” said Marlie and Sunny, to the firefighters they met.
