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The first of the new fire stations funded by the 1986 bond referendum opened in 1990.
Fire Station #4 (Yorktown), located at 901 Goosely Road, opened on December 22, 1990.  The
following year, the remaining two stations were completed and opened. Fire Station #5 (Skimino) located at 2000 Newman Road (then Lightfoot Road) opened on July 19, 1991. Prior to its opening, fire and
rescue protection for the Skimino area of the County was provided by the James City-Bruton Volunteer Fire Department. Fire Station #6 (Seaford) located at 503 Back Creek Road, opened on December 7, 1991. With the opening of
Fire Station #6 (Seaford), the vast majority of York County’s citizens were, for the first time, within five minutes of a York County fire station.
In 1995, the department formed a Technical Rescue Team with members specially trained in rope rescue,
advanced vehicle extrication, trench rescue, confined space rescue, structural collapse rescue and as open water divers. Within two years, the department’s team and its members became part of the Tidewater Regional
Technical Rescue Team, a regional emergency response asset.
In July 1996, Public Safety Director Wallace Robertson retired after having
served the County and the Department for twenty-four years (1972-1996). He was the fifth paid member of the York County Fire Department, its first paid Fire Chief, and the County’s only Public Safety Director.
On January 1, 1997, the Department of Public Safety was restructured and renamed the Department of Fire
and Life Safety. The organization was restructured to consist of four divisions, Fire Prevention Division, Fire and Rescue Operations Division, Emergency Communications Division, Technical Services and Special Operations Division
and an Office of Emergency Management. Fire Chief Stephen Kopczynski was named to lead the new department as its Director. The department also organized an Honor Guard in January of 1997.
In June of 1997, four of the department’s Technical Rescue Team personnel were chosen for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Search and Rescue Virginia Task Force Two. Battalion Chief Michael Player, Captain Robert Brown, Captain Kenneth Elliot and Captain Christopher Sadler joined department members
Lieutenant Sean Segerblom and Senior Firefighter Robert Moore (who were members by virtue of their volunteer affiliations with the Virginia Beach and Franklin Fire Departments) on the task force.
During the July 4, 1998 Yorktown celebration, the department used bike medics
(Firefighter-Emergency Medical Technicians, Cardiac Technicians and Paramedics riding bicycles specially outfitted with medical supplies and equipment) for the first time. The enhanced mobility of the bicycles enabled a more
rapid emergency medical service response through the large crowds gathered for the celebration.
In February 1999, the department’s Fire Administration Offices and 9-1-1 Emergency Communication
Center moved from its Main/Ballard Street address in Yorktown to its present location at 301 Goodwin Neck Road in the County’s Operations Center Complex.
On November 4, 1999, the department fought what eventually became the equivalent of a three-alarm fire
that consumed the Jewish Mother Restaurant at 2021 Richmond Road and threatened an adjacent hotel.
Continue on to History Page 5
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