FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on the city’s volunteer fire department.

The city’s volunteer fire department will add a fourth fire station on the north side of Fairhope, but it will probably not be located on Parker Road next to the new Publix Super Market and shopping center.

“We’re probably not going to get it,” said Chief John Saraceno, referring to a plot of land that resident and local landowner Arthur Corte planned to donate to the city, where the FVFD could then build a new fire station. “We’re looking at other property now.”

City Administrator Gregg Mims said Tuesday that Saraceno told him last week that the FVFD had all but abandoned plans to locate the fire station on that property.

Corte had planned to donate the property as part of the latest phase of development of the mixed-used development project on U.S. 98 and Parker Road, according to city staff. That project began with the Publix grocery store and shopping center, which recently was the subject of a consent order between the Florida-based developer of the site and state environmental agency for alleged violations of clean water laws caused by muddy runoff leaving the site during construction, which included an $11,000 fine.

The next phase of the residential part of the project was considered during a meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission last month, which involved Corte’s proposal to have “setbacks” instead of “buffers” used along Fly Creek,which meanders along the property’s southern border.

However, the commission required that more environmentally protective buffers be required for the residential phase of Corte’s project, instead of setbacks.

During that meeting, local citizen activist Paul Ripp shouted a question from the audience, asking if Corte’s donation of the property was contingent on his receiving the commission’s approval of setbacks. Mayor Tim Kant, a member of the commission, answered affirmatively from the dais to Ripp’s question.

Ripp has been a vocal opponent of the decision to locate the fire station on Parker Road.

“That’s music to my ears,” he said at Monday’s City Council meeting, on learning that the fire station will probably not be located on Parker Road.

Corte did not immediately return a call for comment by press time.

During an interview in his office last week at Leo Keller Station No. 1, Saraceno said the department will build a fourth station as required by the organization that rates municipal fire stations for insurance purposes, and that it will be located on the north side of town.

“We are required to build another one,” he said. “The city has grown on the northern end of the jurisdiction.”

The company Saraceno referred to, Insurance Services Office Inc., evaluates municipal fire-protection efforts throughout the country, according to its Web site.

“A community’s investment in fire mitigation is a proven and reliable predictor of future fire losses,” the ISO Web site states. “So insurance companies use (ISO) information to help establish fair premiums for fire insurance, generally offering lower premiums in communities with better protection.”

The city’s volunteer department has an ISO rating of 4 on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the highest, Saraceno said.

“We have an excellent ISO rating,” he said. “We are in the top 5 percent of the country.”

The department answered 432 calls during the 2008 calendar year, which will be closer to 450 during 2009, said Saraceno, noting those calls included structure fires, rescues, medical assists, lost persons and automobile accidents.

“We have a response time on the average of five minutes,” he said. “Most (salaried) departments have between three-and-a-half and a four-minute response time.”

In addition to Leo Keller Station No. 1 located on Ingleside Drive behind Thomas Hospital, the department also has Roy White Station No. 2 on Thompson Hall Road, and Leo Bung Station No. 3 at the Fairhope municipal airport.

“We’re able to (have a low response time) because of our strategically located volunteer firefighters,” he said, referring to the 43 firefighters of the FVFD, who carry pagers with them and respond to calls dispatched by city employees at the police station.