Gillian Barkhurst
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
(TNS)

Oct. 24—Next week, construction crews will break ground on a new fire station at Coronado Park, once the site of Albuquerque’s largest and most visible homeless encampment.

“This place is at the confluence of three important stories that are in many ways symbolic of our entire city,” Mayor Tim Keller said during a news conference Friday.

Over the course of its more than 75-year existence, Coronado Park along Third NW, just south of Interstate 40, has housed a steam engine train, dozens of people with nowhere else to go and now, Fire Station 4.

“We’re excited to have a new home,” said Albuquerque Fire Rescue firefighter Chris Franklin as he stood beside the station’s fire truck, called the Dragon Slayer.

To celebrate the new station, Keller joined firefighters to splash water from two fire engines across the overgrown grass and clover. A spray of mist created a rainbow across the long-locked up lawn.

Coronado Park, which has been closed since August 2022, housed an estimated 120 people each night at the time of its closure, according to past Journal reporting.

Closing the park was controversial and former residents have leveled a lawsuit at the city for allegedly violating their constitutional rights. The class-action lawsuit said removing people from the park, without anywhere else to go, constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Recently, the state Supreme Court denied the city’s appeal to intervene in the ongoing encampment case as it makes its way through 2nd Judicial District Court.

Homeless advocacy groups and one city advisory board also criticized Keller for abruptly closing the park. City officials said the decision was forced by escalating crime, including drug and human trafficking.

“We had trafficking that was happening here — all in this place where many of us used to play as kids,” Keller said.

Four people were killed at or near the park in the three years before its closure, according to past Journal reporting.

The new station will replace the aging Fire Station 4 that sits at the park’s southeast corner. The new station will cost $13.2 million and is expected to be finished by the end of 2026, said AFR spokesperson Lt. Jason Fejer.

The cost was covered by $8 million in city general obligation bonds and $5.2 million in capital outlay funds from the Legislature.

“A lot of suffering happened here,” said House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, who helped allocate capital outlay for the project. “There’s also a lot of hope and I think that there’s also a great deal of opportunity as we move forward in the city.”

© 2025 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.). Visit www.abqjournal.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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In the realm of fire apparatus specification, one of the most important things to get right, yet one of the most difficult to understand sometimes, is lighting. Firefighters are well accustomed to understanding gallons per minute and pounds per square inch, but lux and lumens are not always terms easily understood, nor is understanding the nuances of getting a scene light, for example, to shine light where you think it will. Along the way there are numerous types of lights, among them silicone lighting, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) compliance, and writing the specs themselves. But, companies like SoundOff Signal offer support when specifying the lighting on your next rig.

For more information, visit www.soundoffsignal.com.

The post Specifying Lighting with SoundOff Signal appeared first on Fire Apparatus: Fire trucks, fire engines, emergency vehicles, and firefighting equipment.

Special Delivery Alan M. Petrillo

The Green Bay Metro (WI) Fire Department had been running a tractor trailer unit and a small rescue truck that carried hazardous materials equipment to its hazmat calls but decided to purchase a single vehicle that could carry its necessary hazmat equipment and gear to a scene and transport more firefighters.

Green Bay Metro found the answer to its predicament when it had E-ONE build a walk-around hazmat truck that perfectly met its needs.

Mike Vanden Avond, Green Bay Metro’s hazmat battalion chief, says the department needed a new tractor for its fifth wheel hazmat trailer but couldn’t find one that would work, so it changed its thinking and decided to go with a single vehicle dedicated to hazmat responses. “While our new truck is dedicated for hazmat, it also responds to box alarm fire calls because it has a mobile fill station and an air bottle cascade system for 10 spare MSA one-hour bottles and 10 MSA air packs,” Vanden Avond points out.

1. The hazmat truck that E-ONE built for the Green Bay Metro (WI) Fire Department is built on a three-door Typhoon cab and chassis with a 24-inch Vista raised roof and seating for four firefighters and a command area at the back of the crew cab. (Photos courtesy of Fire Service Inc.)

Michael Purvis, E-ONE’s director of sales, says the Green Bay Metro hazmat truck is built on a Typhoon chassis and three-door cab with a 24-inch Vista raised roof and seating for four firefighters, three in self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA); a command center in the crew cab with two workstations; a severe duty interior; RollTek air bags; and barrier style doors. The rig has a 274-inch wheelbase, is 41 feet 8 inches long, and is 11 feet 5 inches high.

Purvis notes the truck is powered by a 500-horsepower (hp) Cummins X12 engine and an Allison 4000P EVS automatic transmission and has a formed 304L stainless steel body that includes a side climb integral ladder in the body for a protected climb in blocking mode. It also has six coffin compartments on top holding six DOT 6,000-pound-per- square-inch (psi) breathing air cylinders and a fill station in a compartment below. “The stainless steel body allows for a longer body in a one-piece design, which improves its durability,” Purvis says. “And, the longer body also allows for a significant amount of storage space in the compartments and on top of the vehicle.”

Jim Castellano, vice president of sales for Fire Service Inc., who sold the hazmat truck to Green Bay Metro, calls the rig “a big, huge toolbox. Besides the command area in the cab for research and control, the hazmat truck has 11 exterior compartments, five on each side and one at the rear.

When South Milwaukee (WI) Fire Department Chief John Litchford answered a phone call from the Vintage Fire Company in Slinger, Wisconsin, he was asked this question: Would you like to have your old fire truck back?

The Vintage Fire Company had been tasked with finding new homes for four pieces of fire apparatus that were part of a fire collection whose owner had passed. One of the fire trucks was a 1938 American LaFrance type 450 RDB, registration L-973, with a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and double bank quad ladder truck. The truck had been shipped in 1938 from Elmira, New York, to the South Milwaukee Fire Department.

The quad ladder truck would serve South Milwaukee well into the late 1950s. The truck was then sold to a neighboring fire department. Later, the truck would be sold twice to Wisconsin fire apparatus collectors. The vehicle, always kept inside, was in fair condition but probably had not been run in more than 30 years. Considering that it was now 87 years old, it was remarkable that the quad was complete with a full complement of wood ladders and all the tools that a truck company needed to be in service back in the day. The truck would be a gift from an anonymous donor.

Wow! What an offer! Litchford heads a paid fire department of 26 firefighters. It operates out of one central fire station. Its apparatus includes two pumpers, one mini pumper, one aerial quint, two rescue boats, and three MED units. The department serves 20,000 residents in an area of 4.78 square miles. The city of South Milwaukee borders Milwaukee to the north and Lake Michigan to the east.

Litchford had a couple of concerns. One, where would they store an old rig? Second, how would his firefighters take to another piece of apparatus to maintain? Litchford was able to find storage space with the South Milwaukee Street Department. He learned that the firefighters were enthused with the thought of the ’38 quad coming home. So, Litchford advised the Vintage Fire Company caller that, yes, South Milwaukee would welcome the truck back home.

The truck had not been run in many years and would have to be trailered from the Slinger area to South Milwaukee. The Bucyrus Foundation donated funds to cover the cost of transporting the rig. The mechanics at the street department were able to get the rig running. Last July, the rig made an appearance at Brats-n-Tots, a Heritage Days event in South Milwaukee. This was the first opportunity for South Milwaukee residents to see this iconic piece of local history up close.

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