The Attala County Fire Department hosted a ribbon cutting and open house for its new central station facility on December 9 at 10 a.m. Refreshments were provided and guests had the opportunity to tour the facility and meet members of the Attala County Fire Department.

The building took roughly 14 months to build from ground-breaking to completion. “Obviously there was a planning process, it took about a year to go back and forth on the plans. They had to make some adjustments because the original cost came in entirely too high, so they had to redesign a little bit, and re-advertise, and of course that all takes time,” said Attala County Fire Chief Tim Cox. “And there were some delays because of the weather, and early on, there were some delays due to COVID. Not directly, but with supply chain issues and the cost of materials.” Cox explained that the facility was originally intended to be brick but was redesigned to be more affordable.

The Attala County Fire Department will benefit from having the new facility because they will have room to grow. “We were limited in space with our other building we were leasing from the city. Now that we have a permanent home, we have room to expand,” said Cox.

Fire captain Jarrett Keith commented on what an asset the new facility will be to the Attala County Fire Department. “When we come to work we are here day and night for twenty-four to forty-eight hours at a time. This isn’t just a station for us, this is our second home. We are so proud of this department and all of the hard work and planning that went into making it happen,” said Keith. “We have always tried to do our very best to serve our community and now we have room to add more equipment and training opportunities to allow us to do our jobs more effectively and efficiently.”

The new facility is located at 1017 South Huntington Street in Kosciusko.