Firefighters to burn down fire hall
The Daily Inter Lake
Evergreen razes station to clear lot for new facility
The Evergreen Fire Department will burn down its fire station Saturday to make room for a new and bigger 19,200-square-foot facility.
It will be a controlled burn to provide training for firefighters. Training operations will begin at 7 a.m. with the actual burn to begin at 11 a.m. at the fire station, 2236 U.S. 2 E.
During the exercise, the outside southbound lane of U.S. 2 will be closed to traffic.
The public is invited to watch from Andy's Auto Glass at 2237 U.S. 2 East.
All hazardous materials will be removed from the station prior to Saturday, according to a press release from the fire department.
After the fire hall is razed, the department's fire trucks and other equipment are expected to be outdoors just south of the site until July, when the bays should be ready to shelter the trucks again, the press release said. The overall project is expected to be completed in November.
Last September, Evergreen voters approved by a 62 percent to 38 percent margin a $4.4 million bond issue request to fund the new fire station.
Evergreen is overhauling its main station because it is old, cramped and doesn't meet the department's needs.
The department has two stations - the staffed, 51-year-old, 6,500-square-foot main Martin Sundberg Station (named after a charter member of the department) -on U.S. 2 and a small unstaffed one on Birch Grove Road. The main station also has a 1,216-square-foot trailer that serves as a bunkhouse.
The new main station will have five bays, a bunk room, more training areas, more room for vehicles and larger garage doors, plus a community room able to hold 70 people.
The Evergreen department has seen its calls double over the past four years.
The Evergreen Fire District covers 24 square miles of the Evergreen area, which holds 8,000 to 10,000 people.
A home with an assessed taxable market value of $100,000 will pay $67.99 a year, and a home assessed at $200,000 will pay $135.98 a year toward fire protection. A home assessed at $75,000 will pay $50.99 annually.
Last year, the fire department said the 2007 assessed taxable market value of a typical central Evergreen home ranges from $50,000 to $80,000. Homes in Hillcrest and Mission Village usually run from $85,000 to $125,000. North of Rose Crossing, the homes' assessed taxable market values range from $50,000 to $200,000.
Assessed taxable market values are government calculations and are not the private sector's appraised values or sales prices.