An old and cherished landmark for many in Port Orchard was finally demolished but will not be forgotten in the construction of a new fire station. The project has been years in the making, with the 3-acre property containing four parcels purchased in 2019. Fire chief Jeff Faucett said the property was purchased with the intent of improving emergency services in South Kitsap while also clearing out some older buildings.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kitsap Daily News

Firefighters saved a dog from a North Spokane house fire Wednesday afternoon. Crews found dark smoke billowing from the front door of a duplex near N. Altamont St and E. Francis Ave. They quickly attacked the fire and found no one was home. Search crews did find the dog unconscious in the room where the fire started.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXLY-TV ABC 4 Spokane

The Bolt Creek Fire brought the wildland-urban interface, areas in which the wilderness and developed land intersect, to top of mind as people evacuated nearby while a forest burned. The King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks said it has employed a number of techniques to ensure forest resilience, which is one piece of the puzzle to preventing fires from spreading quickly.
- PUB DATE: 9/22/2022 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KING-TV NBC 5 Seattle

Ashland (OH) City Council on Tuesday agreed to purchase a new, $1.5 million ladder truck to replace the fire division’s existing apparatus that has lasted more than 25 years, AshlandSource.com reported.

A city official said the 100-foot ladder truck currently used is a 1996 model that, most recently, struggled to extend the ladder at an event at Brookside Golf Course, the report said.

The fire division has spent around $150,000 on repairs to the truck over the last several years. And since the truck is the only 100-foot ladder owned by the fire division, it is out of commission when it gets serviced, the report said.

The city contracts with Mansfield and Wooster fire departments for those times when the ladder truck is out of service, according to the report.

Most of the purchase will be financed, drawing on the city’s fire equipment fund. But $500,000 worth will be financed with the city’s allocation of American Rescue Plan dollars, the report said. The city received $2.1 million in the federal stimulus money passed to curb the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ladder truck needs to be bought now because of the wait time associated with the transaction. The dealer has stated there are more than 400 trucks ahead of Ashland’s and that it could take up to two years to receive it, according to the report.

By Alan M. Petrillo

Acton (MA) Fire Department has a new station in the northern section of the 20-square mile town in Middlesex County, approximately 21 miles west-northwest of Boston. The new station was designed by the Foxborough-based architectural firm of Kaestle Boos Associates Inc.

“Our new station was added in the North Acton area, which has been geographically underserved and had significant response time issues that have now been resolved,” says Robert Hart, Acton Fire’s chief. Acton has a nighttime population of 40,000, and 60,000 in the daytime, Hart notes, protected by 41 full-time paid firefighters, a chief, deputy chief and secretary. All of the firefighters are EMTs (emergency medical technicians), with 17 certified as paramedics.

Hart points out that the town has owned the land and has been planning for the station for a long time, and that the finalization of those plans came into reality with the hiring of Kaestle Boos.

Todd Costa, principal of Kaestle Boos’s public safety division, says that Kaestle Boos designers teamed with Bob Mitchell, principal at Mitchell Associates Architects in New York to work on the project. “Bob worked with the fire chief and the department to program the building, get the adjacencies arranged, and the operational elements in place,” Costa says, “then helped guide our design as we worked with the town, the department and the community. We handled all the public meetings, information sessions, and permitting and planning group meetings.”

Costa says the project was both “challenging and fun, because Acton is a progressive community that had some ideas about how the station should look and what it should include. The town wanted zero carbon emissions for the station, so we went with a geothermal ground source heat pump with 12 geothermal shafts because there is no natural gas on the site. We also put a solar array on the roof and all LED lighting in the station to make the station as energy efficient as possible. However, we did convince the town to install a diesel generator outside to provide an emergency electrical supply for the station in case of a power outage.”

Read more

• 71
• 0
• Article rating: No rating