Jessica Abell
Missoulian, Mont.
(MCT)
City, local fire officials and community members gathered at the corner of Foxfield Street and Skeels Avenue in Hamilton on Monday to celebrate a groundbreaking for the new fire hall.
At approximately 12,500 square feet, the new location will give firefighters some much needed room for equipment, along with common spaces and living quarters designed with firefighter safety in mind. The new station design includes four bays to house fire trucks, a fire hose tower and decontamination space, as well as offices, counseling boxes and a fitness center.
“This is an exciting day for the Hamilton Fire Department as well as the city and the community that we serve,” Hamilton Fire Chief Brad Mohn said. “This is a state-of-the-art designed station for firefighter safety. It’s designed with expansion of services in mind and our goal is to serve the city and the area for 50 years, if not 75 years with this station … The mayor and city council has been instrumental in making this hope a reality, or this need come to fruition. I’d like to thank the city staff as well as the residents of the area. The Hamilton community has always been very supportive of the fire department, and continue to be.”
The current fire hall located in downtown Hamilton was built in 1907, posing challenges for the department when it comes to space, as well as keeping up with equipment and safety protocol changes. When the downtown station was built the department relied on horse-drawn wagons. Currently the department is forced to special order vehicles because the bays at the station are not large enough to fit standard trucks. Ventilation systems in the building are also aging and inadequate, posing a possible health hazard for firefighters. Fire trucks and equipment that are unable to be properly decontaminated can bring dangerous carcinogens into living quarters. The new fire hall will be equipped with “hot” and “cold” zones that allow for proper equipment storage and decontamination.
“It has larger bays … so that will save the taxpayers some money because we’ve had to order custom-made fire trucks to fit the station. Now we can order a conventional type fire truck,” Mohn said. “The other big thing is firefighter health. Firefighter cancer has skyrocketed over the last decade or so, and this station is designed with a hot zone and a cold zone to keep the carcinogens and the diesel exhaust and stuff away, out of the office area, out of the living quarter areas.”
Considerable concern exists surrounding cancer among firefighters. A 2020 study cited by the Center for Disease Control’s firefighter resources confirmed previous findings of excess mortality rates in firefighters from all cancers and several site-specific cancers as well as positive exposure-response relations for lung cancer and leukemia. The study looked at approximately 30,000 career firefighters from the San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia fire departments and found “these firefighters had a 9% increase in cancer incidence and a 14% increase in cancer mortality compared with the U.S. general population with elevations observed for respiratory, digestive and urinary cancers as well as mesothelioma.”
“It’s sort of the big difference between old fire stations and modern fire stations,” said architect Mike Dowling. “We’ve recognized over the years that firefighters have safety equipment, but when they go into a fire they’re getting ash and all kinds of stuff that collects on their clothing. So they always come back into a decon room where they put their gear immediately of