Gage Miskimen
The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
(TNS)

Feb. 5—

Background:

Initially, after the new Marion Fire Department Headquarters opened in the summer of 2021 — the city’s first new fire station in 30 years — there were plans to find land and get started on building a fourth fire station in the northeast corner of the city.

However, when Fire Chief Tom Fagan presented the department’s 18-month plan to the Marion City Council in November, he said he planned to make the relocation of Fire Station 3 a top priority in the next couple of years.

Fagan noted coverage gaps in the southern portion of the city. He worked with the city’s geographic information analyst Rachael Murtaugh to identify areas in the city needing improved coverage and compared them to areas where vulnerable populations live.

Fire Station 3, which was built in 1964, was scheduled for a $500,000 renovation, but that funding could be reallocated to help pay for a new building, Fagan said.

At the same time, the city still is looking for a place to build Fire Station 4 in northeast Marion, which also has a coverage gap.

A 2015 accreditation study found the city, whose population grew by nearly 20 percent between 2010 and 2020, needs four fire stations. The fourth fire station would be built near Highway 13 and 35th Avenue.

In 2020, the Marion City Council approved spending $1.1 million for the fourth station land and training facility. The city budgeted $400,000 for the station project, with the Marion Firefighters Association contributing $695,000 for the training facility, largely through a trust fund set up by Don and Ruth DeVault.

What’s happened since?

Fagan said planning for a relocated Station 3 is preliminary.

“Right now, we’re running studies and looking at opportunities for land. There’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done,” he said. “Right now, it’s not an approved CIP project and once it is approved, we’re looking at a three-year process with design and construction.”

There are no prospective locations right now, but Fagan said the new station needs to be built south of the current Station 3, which is located at 600 Eighth Ave. Currently, southern Marion is densely residential and finding a space that works without affecting traffic and neighborhoods is a top priority.

Fagan also said it’s his goal to decrease operating costs with a new facility. The early cost estimates for a new Station 3 are around $8.2 million.

“With the new facility, we would look into where we can decrease operating expenses with alternative fuel and solar, which is a smart long-term investment for our taxpayers to reduce financial burden,” he said. “The existing Station 3 was being looked at for refurbishing in the coming years, so if we’re looking at wise investments, is it smarter to relocate and optimize the deployment?”

The design would most likely include three drive-through fire apparatus bays, each of which would be bigger than the bays at the current Station 3. The living quarters and office space in the building would be smaller than the space at the new headquarters, Fagan said.

Murtaugh created a social vulnerability index for Marion, which takes the 2020 census data looking at poverty level, dependent age, transportation access, racial and immigration status and other socioeconomic factors that can increase financial and disaster hardships.

“Then that’s where we overlay the fire department’s geographical coverage gap over that vulnerability index,” Murtaugh said. “When I brought it to other c

Jorge A. Vela
Laredo Morning Times, Texas
(TNS)

Feb. 5—After several months of being closed down, the El Cenizo Fire Department recently opened its doors once again.

Last weekend, El Cenizo Mayor Carina Hernandez and other city officials met with the new board members of the El Cenizo Volunteer Fire Department, a local non-profit organization, to discuss the importance of rebuilding it and regaining the public’s trust.

Hernandez said the meeting helped show how both city entities will work together to be productive and have good working relationships to ensure the city provides fire suppression and first response services to El Cenizo.

Hernandez said she learned a lot during the first board meeting and also about the lack of resources that the fire department has suffered within the past few years.

“It was disturbing to know that our volunteers were not provided the basic support for training costs and fuel to ensure the operability of the first response vehicles,” Hernandez said.

The mayor wants to ensure that the fire department is fully furnished and ready to be used when needed. She hopes to have it completely ready within the next few months of her administration as they get a good inside look at what is needed.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, but our primary goal is to ensure that the department is furnished for the volunteers to be able to properly conduct their business and training,” Hernandez said. “In the coming weeks, we will meet with law enforcement agencies to establish a collaborative working relationship and improve the credibility of the department so that doors of opportunity aren’t closed on us anymore.”

The new mayor said that she and her new administration intend to provide the municipal and voluntary fire department with all it needs necessary in efforts to get things done. She said that supporting them with the resources necessary is the very least the city can do, as it does not have the full potential to hire a full-time firefighter because of the lack of revenue that the city sees.

“I’m committed to ensuring that we support our first responders with resources necessary for them to bravely serve our community in their time of need,” Hernandez said. “We owe it to them to be supportive and responsive. Many small communities like El Cenizo depend on volunteer fire departments because of the small revenue stream that doesn’t allow for us to have full-time paid firefighters.”

One of the items agreed upon was to finalize a detailed inventory of all the items located in the fire station. From there, the mayor said they will assess the amount of money that will be necessary to refurbish the station and ensure that it is equipped to be open and operational to the public.

“We hope for the department to be a place where people can go and visit if they have concerns, want to check their glucose or blood pressure as well and be referred to health care providers if needed,” Hernandez said. “I take public safety seriously, and I am committed to ensuring that public safety and the well-being of our residents remain a top priority of mine and the City Council.”

___

(c)2023 the Laredo Morning Times (Laredo, Texas)

Visit the Laredo Morning Times (Laredo, Texas) at www.lmtonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Tyler Estep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(TNS)

Land disturbance permits were approved last week for Atlanta’s public safety training center, clearing the way for initial construction to begin on the deeply controversial project.

City leaders, who had been largely silent on the matter for months, took the opportunity to restate their case for the facility — reminding folks what is and isn’t included in the proposal, reiterate why they think it’s needed and pitch the benefits they believe the community will see from the $90-million complex.

Opponents, of course, responded in kind. And a growing list prominent local officials called for, at the very least, more public conversation about the project.

“We are hopeful that answers will be found,” a group of seven Democratic state senators wrote in a statement, “and that the voices of those living in the communities most affected by this conflict will be listened to above all others.”

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference announcing the new permits, as well as in a subsequent sit-down with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens described the planned training center in southwestern DeKalb County as both a “critical need,” a “true community asset.”

A total of 85 acres would be developed, with the remaining 300 or so acres in the area remaining publicly available greenspace — most of it the forest that exists on the eastern side of the property now, with trails and such added, and the rest scattered amid the facility’s various buildings.

“A park that will have a training center on a modest footprint within it,” as the mayor put it.

So-called “cop city,” Dickens stressed, would be not just for police but fire-rescue cadets as well. It would include classroom and meeting spaces, a driving course, academy housing, a “burn building” for firefighters, kennels and other facilities for K-9s, and stables and pastureland for equine units.

The public would also have access to meeting space and outdoor amenities like pavilions.

Also planned, of course, are a firing range and a “mock village,” a life-size work up of various buildings you’d find in a city, used for tactical training. That portion, which was not directly mentioned by Dickens this week, is the most controversial aspect of the site plan.

Atlanta police Chief Darin Schierbaum described the current training situation for Georgia’s largest law enforcement agency as “disjointed.” APD rents classroom space at Metropolitan State College and goes to Fulton County or other neighboring jurisdictions for more active training.

Likewise, Atlanta fire chief Rod Smith said his agency has been “operating in a fractured state for over 30 years.” For decades their classroom training was in a vacant elementary school (which has since been condemned). They bus folks to DeKalb County or Douglasville for live fire training.

Fire department recruits used to learn to drive “big boy ladder trucks,” as Dickens put it, in grocery store parking lots. Stores recently nixed that, complaining the heavy machinery damaged the asphalt.

Recruits now learn to drive on the actual streets of Atlanta, at night, and hope for the best.

Officials have suggested the new training center would be a boon for recruiting and morale.

At the same time, Dickens said last week that APD

A manufacturing facility in Chicago Heights was destroyed in a massive fire Monday morning. The fire broke out at Morgan Li around 6 a.m. in the 1100 block of Washington Avenue. The 500,000-square-foot facility was completely engulfed in flames and quickly spread to neighboring buildings. No one was inside the plant at the time of the fire.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCIA-TV CBS 3 Champaign

VIDEO: The Spokane Valley Fire Department (SVFD) announced Monday it replaced its firefighting foam with new, safer foam. The new foam does not contain perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs), chemicals that have been linked to contaminated water supplies. Washington state passed the Firefighting Agents and Equipment Law in 2018.
- PUB DATE: 2/7/2023 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KREM-TV CBS 2 Spokane