California’s state investment bank approved financing for construction of a fire station in Tiburon, Marin County, NorthBayBusinessJournal.com reported.

The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank approved the $4.3 million Infrastructure State Revolving Fund loan for a new 5,455-square-foot, two-story building at the location of Tiburon Fire Protection District’s existing Station 10 building, the report said. Constructed in 1960, Station 10 is set to be demolished.

IBank stated that the fire district plans to start the construction bidding process soon, with the goal of breaking ground on the project in spring 2023, according to the report. The new station will have two new firefighter positions, retain 29 existing jobs and create eight to 10 construction jobs. It is expected to take about three years to complete.

The fire district’s serves 5.5 square miles, including just over 11,000 residents in Tiburon, Belvedere, other residential and wildland areas on the Tiburon Peninsula and parts of the San Francisco Bay, and Angel Island State Park.

The Catawba Volunteer Fire Department held a groundbreaking ceremony December 20 for a new fire station at 5715 Hudson Chapel Road near the intersection of Rhyne Road in Catawba, HickoryRecord.com reported.

The new facility, scheduled to be in service November 2023, will be a 13,000-square-foot fire station and will house bunk rooms, showers, kitchen, community/training room, offices, conference room and storage/supply rooms, the report said. The apparatus bay will consist of four pull-through bays and will also have storage, gear room, tool/work room and be used for training.

Ben Anderson – The Times, Gainesville, Ga.

Dec. 30—More than half of the divers on Hall County’s Marine Rescue Team resigned earlier this month after the fire department announced that it would replace them with a $100,000 underwater drone for search and rescue missions, according to information from the fire department and open records obtained by The Times.

Kimberlie Ledsinger, spokeswoman for Hall County Fire Rescue, confirmed that 15 of 23 divers resigned from the Marine Rescue Team. The team has since added positions and members and now has five openings left, she said.

“Effective immediately I am resigning from the dive team,” Clint Carey, dive supervisor, wrote in a Dec. 2 email to fire department administrators. “I do not agree with the direction it is heading.”

• Hall (GA) Fire Rescue’s dive team will now use a robot to help save drowning victims. Here’s why

The reason for the change, officials said, is that diving in the water to save people is almost always futile. Commissioner Shelly Echols cited fire department data showing that not a single drowning victim had been saved in the past five years. The drone is safer, quicker and cheaper in the long run, officials said. Plus, Echols said, the county still has a dive team in the Sheriff’s Office’s Underwater Search and Rescue Team.

The county has spent more than $141,000 over the last five years on the Marine Rescue Team, according to open records, the vast majority of which was used to buy and maintain diving equipment.

Many divers aren’t happy about being replaced by a robot.

Shortly after the announcement on Dec. 1, divers began emailing their resignations, according to open records.

Alton Lee, Jacob Trites, Cody Long and Jonathan Barton also resigned.

“I cannot get behind the new mission and direction for the Marine Rescue team,” firefighter Jacob Trites wrote in an email. “I have been active on the team for a number of years and I personally know that diving has made a difference in some individuals lives (sic) and gave them a chance to live another day.”

With the underwater drone, he added, “I will not be able to go home at night knowing that I gave that victim every chance they had to see another day.”

Likewise, Carey wrote that the underwater drone performed poorly during a demonstration. It took the drone more than 30 minutes to do what he could have done in 5 minutes, he wrote, and that was with “the best operator in the country running it.”

That operator was Waylon Price, the sales manager for Oceanbotics, who spoke to The Times about the demonstration.

“I’d stepped away to use the restroom and make a phone call, and when I returned they had hidden a mannequin in the water, and they wanted to see what it would look like from start to finish — from opening the box, putting it together, deploying it, putting it out and finding the mannequin,” Price said.

He said it took about 20 minutes from start to finish.

He wouldn’t say whether the drone is meant to serve as a viable replacement for a human dive team. “What I can say is I consider it a valuable tool for any dive team, with or without divers,” he said.

The drone is expected to arrive in January, and Marine Rescue staff will receive training so they can operate it in time for Memorial Day. Price said the drone requires minimal training. An Xbox-like controller is used to operate it.

The fire department will also be purchasing a $650,000 fire boat that will act like an ambulance on the water with a powerful firehose.

The China Spring Volunteer Fire Department bought a new tanker truck with money from a grant and local fundraising efforts, WacoTrib.com reported.

A $220,000 grant from the Texas A&M Forest Service, together with money the department raised on its own, enabled the $300,000 purchase, officials said.

In addition to the ability to supply water to other apparatus, the 4,000-gallon tanker also has a front-mounted nozzle, a fire official said.

The China Spring department is a member of the fire tanker task force in McLennan County and responds to calls from western McLennan County to eastern Bosque County, the report said.

The grant came through the Texas A&M Forest Service’s state-funded Rural Volunteer Fire Department Assistance Program, according to a forest service statement.