Crowded streets, more emergencies and a growing, aging population helped make Raleigh Hills the perfect site for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue's first mini-station.
Staffed by two paramedics with a medical truck that looks like a rolling emergency room, Station 70 sits in a business park on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway near Southwest Laurelwood Avenue. It opened on Oct. 1 and is expected to handle an average of 1,300 calls per year.
It's a new approach to building fire and rescue stations.
Station 70 is truly mini at 1,950 square feet compared to a standard fire station at 10,540 square feet. The station, which handles mostly medical calls, is believed to be the first of its kind in Oregon, according to the fire service. It is also working on designs for a mid-size station.
"What is placed in that station is driven by the calls that occur," said Cassandra Ulven, Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue spokeswoman. "We didn't necessarily need a full size station and truck. What we did need to do was address the medical calls by adding that two person station during the day."
The department's analysis of nearly 6,500 incidents over five years showed about 86 percent of the calls in the Raleigh Hills area were medical related. Of those, about 40 percent were for people age 80 and older.