DILWORTH – Just months after the city broke ground, major progress has been made on the nearly $10 million Dilworth Fire Station project.
Senator Tina Smith, who secured some of the funding for Dilworth’s new fire station, toured the facility on Wednesday, August 14.
Smith met with city officials, Sheriff Mark Empting and Dilworth Fire Chief Scott Payne, who informed her of some of the problems they were having with the old station.
In short: The town of Dilworth is growing. When the old train station was built in 1982, the town had about 2,500 residents. Today, there are almost 5,000. And the old train station is simply no longer big enough for the town. The new one is intended to double the area.
According to Chief Scott Payne, it will not only give firefighters more space, but also the opportunity to disinfect themselves on site after a call. Right now, they have to go home to do that.
“We’re growing. If it’s big enough, we can expand and build a full-time fire department, maybe not on the scale of Moorhead or Fargo, but we can go to a two- or three-man crew overnight,” Payne said.
The Dilworth Fire Department also serves the city of Georgetown and several townships, with a total service area of nearly 89 square miles.
The project is scheduled for completion in spring or summer 2025.
Mike McGurran has been a reporter and anchor at WDAY-TV since 2021.
