Los Alamos County approves $17.9 million Fire Station No. 4 rebuild

Los Alamos County has locked in a $17.9 million rebuild of Fire Station No. 4, turning years of planning into a concrete project for one of the county’s most important emergency response sites.

The County Council unanimously approved Spartan Construction of New Mexico’s bid at its April 7 meeting, clearing the way for a new station beside the existing building at 4401 Diamond Drive, across from the Los Alamos Golf Course. County staff expect the new station to be finished in November 2027. After the new building opens, the old station will be demolished and the site restored as open space.

The rebuild is aimed at more than appearance. Fire Station No. 4 was built in 1964, and county materials describe it as outdated, inefficient and costly to maintain. The current building has tight apparatus bays that do not comfortably fit larger modern fire engines, along with shortcomings in accommodations for a diverse workforce and in contamination barriers that are now considered essential in fire station design.

County planning documents say the new station is intended to improve firefighter health and quality of life, recruitment and retention, turnout times, equipment capacity, alerting technology and sustainability. The project is also designed for LEED Silver certification, reflecting the county’s push to build a more energy-efficient facility with lower long-term operating demands.

The site itself has already been through a public review process. In October 2024, the county said 122 of 134 survey respondents favored keeping the station at its current location. County Council then unanimously approved the existing Diamond Drive site on Nov. 12, 2024, after considering three locations: the current station site, the golf course maintenance yard and a vacant lot north of Loma Linda playground.

A March 2025 neighborhood notice said the new station would be built just west of the existing building and would require rezoning about a half-acre from Open Space-Passive to Institutional. That plan also called for retaining the existing building during construction, adding new driveways and parking, and shifting a trail alignment on the property.

The rebuild has been in the county’s capital planning for years. In 2022, then-Fire Chief Troy Hughes said Station No. 4 had already been placed in the county’s capital improvements plan and that funding sources would be sought to reduce the burden on local taxpayers. The capital project plan at the time listed $7.5 million in 2024 and another $7.5 million in 2026 for replacement of fire stations 4 and 6.

For Los Alamos, the approval means a major public-safety investment is finally moving from drawings and hearings to dirt work and construction. In a county where wildfire risk, emergency response and infrastructure resilience carry real consequences, the new station is being built for the demands ahead, not the standards of 1964.