Shenandoah Briere
The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, N.Y.
(TNS)

Feb. 26—SARATOGA SPRINGS — After some initial concern, the city’s soon-to-be third fire station is expected to open on time in June.

The city was facing a potential delay in the delivery of a backup generator needed to keep emergency systems operating in case of power loss, but the machinery is now scheduled to show up on time.

Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino had been uncertain whether the $9 million station in the eastern portion of the city bordering Saratoga Lake would be able to open in late May, early June due to the potential delay.

On Friday he said he received news that the manufacturers expect the generator to be delivered sometime in June.

Montagnino said many special order items are taking exceptionally longer to build.

“The build times are ridiculously long compared with the pre-COVID days,” he said. “We’re experiencing the same thing with the fire apparatus that we ordered. Things like ladder trucks, the manufacturers are talking about two years to get the ladder truck built from the time it’s ordered to the time it’s delivered.”

However, unlike the emergency generator, he said not having the new ladder truck is not an issue at this point.

“We have two functioning ladder trucks,” he said. “There is a new one on order and we’re able to maintain our equipment so we’ll have functioning ladder trucks until the new one is ready.”

But not having the backup generator means potentially not having computer and other systems operating in the event of the loss of power.

“The emergency generator is a special order item because the third station is also an emergency operation center in the event that some disaster should shut down City Hall and so it requires some sophisticated electronic equipment so that the generator doesn’t damage the computer systems that it would be operating,” he said.

Beyond the delay in the generator and the truck, Montagnino said the physical building is on schedule to be done and ready to open by late May or early June.

The news of the generator comes just a couple days after the City Council unanimously approved hosting its first ever fire academy for the 16 new firefighters it needs to hire.

In September 2022, Saratoga Springs was awarded a $4.1 million grant from the federal government to add 16 firefighters. The money will cover the salaries of those firefighters for three years. The hiring of 16 firefighters would bring the department to around 85 firefighters.

The new firefighters would staff the third station .

So far 10 firefighters have been hired and are ready to head to the academy. Another firefighter who is already trained and works in another department was also hired, Montagnino said.

“We hope to be hiring more in the near future,” he said.

Those new hires will head to the academy in March, which will be hosted at the Wilton FIre District training facility. The academy will run through June and it will cost the city $2,500 to use the Wilton facilities, according to Montagnino.

“The number of new recruits who do not already have firefighter certification is so great that we would overwhelm the existing fire academies and we found that we could actually save by running our own academy at the Wilton location, which has its own classroom facility and burn building,” Montagnino said at the City Council meeting.

The City Council also approved creating a temporary part-time fire instructor position for the 17-week-long academy. Montagnino said instructors would work 24 hours a week at a rate of $35 per

Back in 2021, the Clarinda Fire Department ordered a new pumper truck to replace a unit that’s 35 years old, kmaland.com reported. After a long wait, the $506,000 vehicle finally arrived early last week.

A fire official told KMA News the new truck is a major upgrade over the 1988 model, the report said.

With a bigger chassis, more room for gear, a light tower and upgraded equipment, the truck is available for a variety of fire situations, according to the report.

The chief says the new pumper completes the fire department’s fleet, which includes a ladder truck and a rescue vehicle. The city plans to sell the older model to another fire department, the report said.

Greg Jordan
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, W.Va.
(TNS)

Feb. 25—PRINCETON — Volunteer fire departments are facing rising prices and decreasing sources of funding as they work to keep their vehicles up-to-date and provide their members with up-to-date equipment, prompting one Mercer County commissioner to say that the county may have to look at adjusting its fire fees.

Aaron Beeman, president of the Mercer County Firemen’s Association, spoke Feb. 14 with the Mercer County Commission about the lack of money the county’s volunteer fire departments are facing. He said that the association was looking for $450,000 from the commission, which would give $50,000 to each of the county’s nine volunteer fire departments. The City of Bluefield and City of Princeton fire departments would not receive any of this money.

“The two municipalities are out of that,” Beeman told the commissioners. “They are not participating due to their own funding. This will go toward helping volunteer firefighters and their departments.”

The strain that the nation’s economy has felt over the last two to three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increasing prices and shipping constraints, he said. Most of Mercer County’s fire departments have “out-of-date or soon to be out-of-date equipment.”

Most certification for current firefighting equipment is set to expire after being used for 10 years, Beeman said. This includes air masks and other gear which must be replaced every 10 years. Medical supplies and personal protective gear such as masks and gloves — which are not normally used on every call — had to be purchased during the pandemic.

Outfitting even one firefighter with required gear costs between $9,000 to $10,000, he added.

“When you have 10 to 15 people per station, that adds up quickly,” Beeman stated. “We’re all feeling fuel prices, gas prices. The volunteer fire departments in this county are working on limited funding. We can get funding through some state funding; it comes through the insurance fees. We also have the fire fee in this county. On that note, last year alone over $160,000 was turned into collections for nonpayment of the Mercer County fire fee, which comes to $12,000 to $13,000 less for each of these fire departments will have this year to work on.”

Commissioner Greg Puckett, who attended the meeting by teleconference, spoke at length about the funding issue. He is also a member of the Mercer County Fire Board.

“So we’ve discussed this in the (Mercer County) fire board meeting over the last year and there’s a couple of things we need to look it,” Puckett said. “I know there’s an incremental piece that was put forth eight years ago when the fire fee was put into place, going on nine years ago now when it got adjusted, and at the time it was a good adjustment. But the increasing costs, the inflation costs coming post-COVID, all the different gear in the firefighting apparatus that everything needs to be done, I do think there needs to be a change in the fire fee. I know that’s a difficult thing. They are in arrears in some in some ways in those collections of $160,000-plus, but I believe we’re going to end up having to go back and figuring out a way to make some incremental adjustments within the fire fee itself that it’s balanced out.”

Puckett said the fire board has looked at how funds are distributed among the departments.

“We talked about ways where businesses pay the more because when you’re fighting a fire at a larger facility, it’s obviously going to be more manpower, more things. There should be more of a backup service there to protect and get the m