By Don Collins
Maybe, maybe not. How do you make the choice? Below are some of the issues.
But first, a little narrow history: Most think drive-through stations are an outgrowth of concerns raised in the last quarter of the 20th century over damage incurred by apparatus and stations in backing accidents. This is true to a large degree, but I have in my collection of fire station photos, images of a large brick fire station in Massachusetts designed shortly after the turn of the 20th century, not as a drive-through but as a pull-through. Yes, a pull-through. At the time the station was designed, the fire department asked for a station where their horse-drawn steamers and aerial devices could be pulled forward from the rear of the station into the apparatus bays. The information I received in visiting and photographing the station was that the department’s officers and members at the time knew it would be easier to get a team of horses to go forward into an apparatus bay than it was to get a team of horses to back into a bay. I know nothing about horses, but it sounds plausible. By the time the station was actually completed, gasoline-powered tractors had replaced the horses. Nearly 90 years later, the large career station is still in use, having undergone a major interior renovation in 2014.
Later, doing a study of fire stations for a municipality in Oklahoma, I was introduced to the department’s photo archives. There I found a photo of one of its early volunteer stations built circa 1870 that was also designed and built as a pull-through. A single door at the rear of the apparatus floor provided access to the two apparatus positions.
Fire stations with apparatus bay doors at the front and back gained in popularity with fire department administrations as a way to eliminate backing accidents and a means to eliminate having to have personnel in the street acting as road guards as apparatus backed into quarters. The drive-through station as a concept gained additional momentum after a 1979 publication advocating the drive-through station. The same study also advocated placing the daytime rooms on one side of the apparatus floor and the nighttime rooms on the other side. Why not to do the latter is another article, but I will ask you, does anyone reading this live in a house with their car garage in the middle?
Backing accident increases can be attributed to the advent of larger apparatus bodies and cab enclosures and other cab changes that decreased rearward vision from the driver’s seat. We began to rely solely on rearview mirrors mounted to the cab doors. But, the mirrors and mirror mountings were primitive. I can remember backing a mid-1970s aerial where the door mirrors vibrated so bad you could hardly make out the door opening!
So, what are some of the pro and con issues, and how do you make a decision on drive-through or nondrive-through when you may have to live with your choice for the life of the station?
Drive-Through Pros
There is less opportunity for an accident in a drive-through station if the driveway, apron, and entry portals are designed correctly and the driver and officer remain alert until the apparatus is in quarters and the motor has been shut down. I have heard it many times: “There are a lot fewer accidents pe