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.”
The new Acton station aims for zero carbon emissions so it has geothermal ground source heating, all LED lighting inside and out, and solar panels on the roof.
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.”
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Posted: Sep 21, 2022
The city of Ketchum is spending more than $700,000 on a new fire engine, MTExpress.com reported. But the new vehicle isn’t expected to arrive until sometime in early 2025.
The city council approved the expenditure in a vote Monday night, the report said.
A fire official told the council that the city’s Engine 1 has passed the typical lifespan of an engine on front-line service. The wait for a machine is between 27-30 months, a fire official said, so it was in the best interest of the city to act quickly, according to the report.
The current fire engine was bought in 2004 and has been on front-line service, according to the city’s presentation, for 18 years. During that time, the city has not had a reserve engine.
The engine is in good condition, but maintenance needs have been increasing, according to the fire official.
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Posted: Sep 21, 2022
The Kuna Rural Fire District is asking for a new station and six permanent firefighters to keep up with increased demand, KTVB.com reported.
The additions will be up for vote in November’s general election through a levy increase and a bond, the report said.
The fire district’s population, which covers some areas outside of Kuna, is projected to increase 74% in the next 10 years, according to the report.
Kuna Fire has one fire station and 15 firefighters, five per shift. The station serves 34,000 residents and 110 square miles. Recommendations say that communities should have one fire station for every 10,000 people, the report said.
With the booming population, emergency call volumes to the Kuna Rural Fire District have increased 72% in the past decade, the report said. The station sees about 2,000 emergency calls per year. Almost a quarter of those calls are overlapping, where multiple emergency calls come in at the same time.
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Posted: Sep 21, 2022
Nine of Dallas Fire-Rescue’s 23 frontline fire trucks have mechanical issues and are out of service. All of the department’s backup trucks are in use, leaving it two short of being fully operational, DallasObserver.com reported.
It could take two weeks to bring the trucks back into service, which is why the city is working on an emergency rental agreement to cover the shortage, a fire official said, according to the report. These rented trucks could be available as early as this week.
Another fire official said the shortage could translate into more calls for specific fire stations and spread department resources even thinner, the report said.
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