1. A New Location for One of Hudson’s Fire Stations
by Shannon Lindsay
Two weeks ago, the Hudson-Litchfield News began a series on the Hudson Fire
Department with a history of the department: how it began in our town, how it has changed over
the past 122 years since it was first formed, and where it is now. This week will be the start of
outlining changes that our professional firefighters and officers in conjunction with the Board of
Selectmen are hoping to ask the voters to approve in March when the town has its elections.
Currently, the town of Hudson has three fire stations in use: The Leonard A. Smith
Central Station (located at 15 Library Street), the Robinson Road Station (located at 52 Robinson
Road), and the Burns Hill Station (located at 88 Burns Hill Road). These stations are all staffed
full-time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week; however, the Burns Hill Station was not originally
meant to be.
The Burns Hill Station was built in 1981, and its original purpose was simply as a place
to house volunteer fire fighters temporarily, a place they could stop at to shower and change after
being called onto the job, and a place to house equipment for the on-call firefighters. Despite its
original purpose, it has been fully staffed since 2001, even though it is not properly equipped for
this job. The rooms are not separated by walls; only lockers separate “rooms” from one another.
The chief’s bedroom doubles as an office, and the kitchen doubles as a training room. There is
also no workout equipment or space for equipment storage. This is something which needs to be
fixed if the town wants this station to continue to be staffed full-time, but, rather than just
renovating the station, there may be reason to move it entirely to a new location.
The National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) requires that all fire departments be
able to reach 90% of their town within four minutes, from at least one of the stations in the town.
Currently, Hudson is at 58%. There used to be a three minute response-time to any part of

2. Hudson from one station or another; however, at this point in time, that’s no longer true. The
current 2014 data shows that the response times reach as high as seven minutes for some parts of
the town.
Back in 1980, when the Burns Hill Station was built, Hudson was home to 14,022 people.
Currently, Hudson is home to 24,645 people, quite a big difference from what it was over 30
years ago. The extra 10,000 people living here now means that the town’s residential areas are
expanding. More developments have popped up everywhere these days, and, quite simply, a
larger geographic area needs to be covered. In addition, a slight shift has occurred in where
people are living within the town; the majority of calls taken now by the fire department are
coming from the Lowell Road area, which is one of the more congested parts of the town.
These changes in the population size and where people are living have made it more
difficult for the fire department to respond quickly enough to every area of the town when
necessary. The staffing and the technology have improved, but the amount of area to be covered
is significantly larger. Because of this, it may be time for a change in location for one of the
stations.
The Hudson Fire Department would like to propose that the Burns Hill Station be
relocated to Lowell Road, which would allow for the amount of area that could be reached with a
four minute response-time to increase from 58% to 70%. This would also allow for the new
station to be more fully equipped as it should be for a full-time staff, since the Burns Hill Station
never was. Furthermore, the winding back roads where the Burns Hill Station is located make it
harder for the trucks to get where they need to be quickly. Moving the station to Lowell Road
appears to be an all-around great solution to all of these problems.

3. The location for this new station would officially be 204 Lowell Road. To give a better
idea of where this would be, it would be next to Hardy Road and directly across from Fairview
Nursing Home, in between Mission Pointe and Market Basket. This land is currently not in use,
but is already owned by the town which would end up being a huge cost saving if the project
were to go forward. It is 1.145 acres of land, and it is currently valued at $77,100, a price which
the town would not have to pay. A fire station is one of the only buildings in a town that is
location-driven, being that it needs to be able to reach different parts of the town as quickly and
efficiently as possible, so the town believes that this land which they already own would be best
used for this purpose.
Right now, the South end of Hudson is not easily reached by the fire department and is
definitely not in the four minute response-time area, but this new station would be able to reach
highly populated areas such as River Road and Dracut Road much faster than the Burns Hill
Station can. Much of the area which the Burns Hill Station is able to quickly respond to is
actually unbuildable land. Though there are some houses over there, there are definitely more
near the South end of the town.
A concern which some people may have about this new location for the fire station would
be an effect on traffic. However, this should not be a problem. There is a new traffic light being
proposed currently as a joint-venture between Haffners, Fairview, and Market Basket. Once this
light was in use, the fire department would be given control of it. Whenever the department
needed to go on a call, they would simply be able to turn the light facing vehicles coming from
other directions to red, and the fire trucks would be able to pull out quickly and efficiently. This
disruption would be a matter of seconds, and then the traffic flow would go back to normal.

4. If it is voted yes in the March election, this project will begin as early as January 2016.
The Hudson Fire Department has been given building plans by the town of Londonderry, from a
station which Londonderry had built not too long ago. These are the plans which Hudson plans
to use, almost exactly as they are, and this will allow for cost-savings in this area; no one will
need to be hired to come up with plans.
The Hudson-Litchfield News will be running a series of stories to keep you up to date on
what is happening with the plans for this station and will continue to provide you with more
information before the election in March, so stay tuned.