St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and the city council approved spending to add seven new firefighters in 2025, marking the first time new staff has been added to the St. Paul Fire Department (SPFD) since 2009.

It also means a fully-staffed engine crew at Fire Station 7 on the city’s East Side — which also marks the first time in nearly 70 years that a new rig has been put in circulation with a full staffing of firefighters to complement it.

Assistant SPFD Chief Jeremiah Melquist told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the latest addition of firefighters will help save lives.

“Putting more responders on the rigs and ready to respond when minutes matter, seconds matter between life and death,” said Melquist. 

Melquist also said it will put a full engine and ladder crew, along with an ambulance crew, under the same roof at Station 7.

“It’s centered on the East Side, so they go all directions north, south, east, west, and for a long time, it was just engine ladder seven that ran out of this station, and now we’ll have ladder seven running with medic seven, so we have fire and EMS,” said Melquist.

Kyle Thornberg, the President-elect of the St. Paul Firefighters Union, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the move by the mayor and city council is “very significant.”

“Absolutely monumental and historic for us. It’s historic for the mayor and the city council to bring back firefighter jobs and, like I said, create new assets to the fire department to help absorb these calls,” said Thornberg.

The new firefighters and the new Fire Station 7 will all be up and running sometime in February.