To the men and women who fight fires, a fire station can be a second home.

That's what makes the recent decision by the membership of Phoenix Fire Company in Jim Thorpe so difficult."Our members are all in agreement that keeping our engine at the station on West Broadway is unsafe and it's going to cost a lot of money to make it safe," said firefighter Bob Newton, captain of Phoenix Fire Company. "With no truck in there, it's not a fire station and we don't feel taxpayer money should be spent to fix it."Newton broke the news to Jim Thorpe Borough Council, the entity with the final say on the future of the building, earlier this month.Phoenix personnel noticed several cracks in the station's floor in November 2014 and an engineer's evaluation confirmed the structure was failing."In a short time the crack went from a quarter-inch to an inch," Newton said. "We had a $375,000 truck in there so we had to move that up to the Fairview station on the east side of town. There is a creek that runs under our station and we sure didn't want the truck to end up through the floor."Newton said it would cost at least $115,000 just to fill the basement in for the front third of the firehouse. That cost doesn't include the area that spans the creek."If everyone agrees, I think we should look at what the membership wants to do," Council President Greg Strubinger said. "There are obviously still a lot of hurdles with moving equipment out of the Phoenix. Fairview also needs some electrical upgrades before we look at any transition."Though closing down Phoenix's station, built in the 1800s, seems likely, the company wouldn't merge charters with Fairview or Diligent Fire Company 3, the two remaining companies in town.Marion Hose Company 1, near the Mauch Chunk Opera House, closed a number of years ago."It's really unfair to ask residents to come up with in excess of $200,000 to fix a fire house that's probably only worth $85,000," Newton said. "That fire house was built for a horse and buggy and it just can't hold the type of equipment we have in there."Any move could have a ripple effect through the entire department, Newton acknowledged."Membership at each station is dwindling," he said. "We'll have to look at everything like do we still need three companies in town or can we just get away with one on the west side and one on the east side? Do we need three pumpers in town? There are a lot of grants out there for fire department consolidation so that is something to think about."Council on Thursday approved the elimination of the second deputy chief and second lieutenant positions for each fire company.According to Newton, there aren't enough qualified people to fill those spots.In addition to leaving its station, Phoenix may also reduce its equipment inventory, saving on fuel and insurance costs."We can't staff all the apparatus at the same time, so one scenario we looked at was selling our ladder truck and fire engine and purchasing a combination ladder truck engine," he said.Newton said the cost of that truck would be around $750,000-$900,000."If we sell those two pieces, however, we'll have a good start and be much better off than 20 years ago when we bought the ladder truck and council came up with all the money," he said.The Phoenix staff has already met with manufacturers to see what they would offer."I don't think we'll have to raise taxes to make this happen," Newton said.