Evergreen shows off its new fire hall

Evergreen Fire Rescue’s new station, rising from the ashes of the old, has already brought new life to the department.

“We’ve seen the number of volunteers increase,” said Evergreen Fire Chief Craig Williams, which has helped the department deal with a volume of calls that has almost doubled in recent years.

Evergreen Fire Rescue received 1,420 calls in 2009, slightly down from the 1,532 calls in 2008, but much more than the 903 the department received in 2007.

Evergreen Fire District covers 24 square miles of the Evergreen area, which holds about 9,000 people.

The new building has housed crews for less than one month.

The public is invited to an open house today to view the new facility.

Spacious and eco-friendly, the station at 2236 U.S. 2 East boasts a room for community meetings, offices, sleeping quarters, an exercise room, motion-sensing lights that turn on automatically when people enter a room, a heavy-duty washer to remove hazardous material from fire gear (crews used to have it dry-cleaned) and fans to suck out engine exhaust.

And it’s bigger, by 12,700 square feet.

“We’re excited, it allows a lot of improved training opportunities and will accommodate 50 to 60 years of continuing operations,” Williams said.

Much of the station doubles as a training area, which makes it fairly unique, according to David Mitchell of CTA Architects, which designed the 19,200-square-foot station.

“Training features were built in because of the tight space,” said Mitchell. Shawn Baker, project manager for Swank Enterprises, the station’s general contractor, said the building’s small site made construction challenging. “There are no extras, no fluff. Every area is used,” Baker said.

Built-in training features include a floor-collapse simulator through which firefighters can practice lifting “victims” among other rescue techniques, a disorientation maze, window/door reach simulators, various types of roofs, handrails that break off from the balcony and a static line that runs the width of the truck bay.

The tools “allow us to train in a real-life scenario while in a controlled environment,” said Williams.

Crews will be on hand during today’s public open house to demonstrate some of the new features.

Costing $2,966,552 to construct, the building came in $364,249 under the projected $3,330,801 budget. Evergreen voters approved by a 62 percent to 38 percent margin a $4.4 million bond issue request to fund the new station.

The department for part of last year was housed in a mobile home just south of the property line, its trucks and other equipment housed in a makeshift enclosure since crews burned the old station to the ground April 4, 2009, as a training exercise.

The new building is a welcome change from the old station, which lacked even a back-up generator.

“If we knew a storm was coming, we’d have to open the bay doors so we wouldn’t lose response time by having to manually open them,” Williams said. He said training outside in freezing conditions made it difficult to retain volunteers.

Those are just some of the “multitude of reasons” Williams said a new station was needed.

“It was 60 years old and was built for volunteer labor. We outgrew it, it was unsafe,” he said. Lead and asbestos exposure created a hazardous work environment and there was no vehicle exhaust removal. Plus, the bays were too small to adequately house the trucks, which had to be custom designed at a higher cost in order to fit.

“We really appreciate the support of the community. They rallied behind us, even with the economy and everything,” Williams said.

The open house will be today from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Snacks will be served and fire crews will perform demonstrations that highlight the new facility. Tour guides will be present to show guests the station.

Reporter Melissa Weaver may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at mweaver@dailyinterlake.com