A large crowd attended the ceremony that took place in Gweedore Business Park.

The new station is part of is one of a number of new stations being built around the county to ensure fire fighters have all the necessary facilities required by today's high standards.

It was built at a cost of €700,000.

It was officially opened by Michael Finneran TD, Minister for Housing, Urban Renewal and Developing Areas.

MC for the occasion was County Manager, Michael McLoone, and local Councillor David Alcorn represented the County Mayor.

Among the other guest at the event were local politicians, Senators, and Fire Officers from across the county including Chief Fire Officer, Bobby McMenamin and ex-Chief Officer Frank Kerrane.

Apologies came from Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher and Tánaiste Mary Coughlan.

As well as the official launch, two members of the local nine person crew, station sub-officer Maurice Gallagher and fire fighter Robert Alcorn were honoured for over 20 years service to the fire brigade and it was presented by Clr David Alcorn. Three of their colleagues received the award last November.

The original station in Gweedore was founded on the same site in 1987 with six fire fighters.

Now, Station Officer, Gerry Gallagher says the new facility is state-of-the-art and will assist in improving their life saving work.

The new two bay station includes a new training tower for the first time, a large watch room as well as a lecture room and kitchen.

“This new station is a modern, top-notch facility, we have far more room now. The watch room is much bigger, even things as simple as having a kitchen, which we didn’t have in the old station. So even when the lads are out on a call they can come in after and we can de-brief,” Gerry said.

He said it was nice that his colleagues were presented with their long services award on the historic occasion of the stations official opening.

“It was great to see them honoured because that is a reward for a long time served. It is a great service to give and its a demanding service, because you are on call 24/7,” Gerry stated.

Gweedore Fire Station has nine members and at any given time they have a seven man crew on stand by to rush to emergency call outs. They have a successful quick response time of just five minutes to get the fire fighters to the station after being paged.

On average they responded anything between 80 and 100 call outs per year.