On Tuesday, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly approved paying $4 million to build two new stations for the Central Mat-Su Fire Department and awarded the contract to Howdie Inc. One station will be on Fairview Loop, kitty-corner to Snowshoe Elementary, and the other will be close to the corner of Knik-Goose Bay Road and Horizon Drive.
Both are fast-growing areas of the borough, and Central as a whole is, by nearly every measure, a growing department. Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele said his department saw a 20 percent increase in call volume in 2009 compared to 2008.
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“The problem is the majority of our fleet was purchased in 1984 and 1985,” said the borough’s director of emergency services, Dennis Brodigan. “They are all aging. They are all coming out of date at the same time.”
Which is why, he said, the department has lately been buying a lot of fire trucks.
Steele backed him up on that score, adding that a lot of the department’s buildings were likewise constructed in the mid-’80s. A lot of them were built with wood-frame construction and with no thought given to making them easy to build additions on.
“They really weren’t built, those back in the early ’80s, looking at long term,” Steele said.
Neither Steele nor Brodigan said the department was having any particular trouble meeting its needs. But it’s a challenge and a bit of a juggling act. Asked to list projects coming up after the two stations are built, Steele provided a laundry list:
• The department needs a permanent facility near Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. The lease on its current building is up in 2015.
• Station 5-2 on Bogard Road needs to be upgraded.
• Station 6-5 on the corner of Seward Meridian Parkway and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway needs to be expanded.
• Station 6-1, the big downtown Wasilla headquarters, needs more space for administrative staff.
• Growth patterns point to the need for a station farther down Knik-Goose Bay Road from the planned Horizon Drive station.
For now, though, they’re focusing on their two new stations. Brodigan said the stations are part of the department’s plan to keep its rating with the Insurance Services Organization — a company that rates fire service for insurance companies. Those ratings are seen by many in the firefighting trade as a standardized benchmark for the quality of a department. Central currently holds a rating of 4. The rating is based on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the best.
Unlike the stations built in the 1980s, Steele said, the new stations will be built with an eye on keeping them in service for 40 or 50 years. As part of that, they’ll be built with the ability to expand.
And they won’t necessarily be the standard borough fire station with equipment bays and a couple small rooms.
The station on Horizon will have crew quarters, Steele said, so it can be staffed 24 hours a day if needed. Those beds will come in handy during wildfire season since the area is usually among the first to catch fire each year.
As for the rest of the bells and whistles, Brodigan said the exact design of the stations is yet to be determined. The stations are being built in a design-build fashion, which, he explained, means the borough works with the contractor and figures out how to get the most bang for the borough’s buck.
“We basically tell the vendor, ‘Hey, we’ve got $4 million to do these things. How much can you give us for the $4 million? What can you do?’” Brodigan said.
Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.
Comments
2 comment(s)Linda Henning wrote on Jan 11, 2010 5:35 PM:
KGBHorizon resident wrote on Jan 11, 2010 5:29 PM: