New fire training center plans unveiled

PALMER — What is the borough going to do about plans to build a fire training center on Knik-Goose Bay Road?

Tuesday, Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele and Assistant Chief Michael Keenan presented the department’s plans at a meeting of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

The borough owns about 80 acres of land at Knik-Goose Bay and Vine Road that has been set aside for the facility. Keenan said the plan is to construct the facility in phases:

• The first phase would put in access roads, a helipad and install utilities, water mains and hydrants.

• The second phase would move current training towers from the Central Mat-Su and West Lakes fire departments into the complex, install a 100,000-gallon water tank and build a new pad as a place to practice cutting up cars — skills needed at accident scenes.

• The third phase would build a new fire station 6-2 that would include space for the classroom portion of the training.

• The fourth phase would install a driving course for emergency vehicles, a pond to practice water and ice rescue and water pumping, and props for different types of firefighting.

Other elements that might be included are trenches for running rescue drills, a debris field to simulate a collapsed building and a bunch of fake railroad tankers.

Steele said a very rough ballpark estimate puts the cost of the facility at $24 million.

“To be able to fund this out of the Central Mat-Su Fire Department or the Wasilla Lakes Fire Service Area is not realistic,” he said. “So we’re going to actively pursue other grant funds.”

The plan dates back at least six years if not longer. It began in earnest in 2003 when the borough bought the land from the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Since 2003 the area has been built up. The facility has more neighbors, and at least one assembly member said the neighbors have concerns.

“I hear from my constituents that they’re not really excited about having this in their backyard,” Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine told Steele and Keenan.

Bettine asked about the props Central would be using and about its liquid fuel exercises.

Keenan said that while firefighters need to train to put out jet fuel and diesel fuel fires, the department plans to do simulated fires, rather than actually torching off a bunch of diesel. Natural gas or propane will be used in those simulations, but will be used in such a way as to simulate burning diesel or jet fuel.

There will be an airplane prop, but that prop will also be fed with natural gas or propane. Both are cleaner burning fuels that don’t present the smoke issues associated with diesel and jet fuel.

Not only that, said borough Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan, but the plan is to leave in place 100 feet of trees to act as a buffer all the way around the facility.

“The neighbors won’t even know that we’re there, for all intents and purposes,” he said.

Bettine said she understood that it’s good to have a facility like this close to one of the borough’s main transportation corridors like the Parks Highway. But she also pointed out that with the area growing there’s a need for more schools. The site was eyed during the process to build a new elementary school in the area. The borough wound up building that school on the same parcel of land as an existing elementary school. Which is why Knik Elementary sits right next door to Goose Bay Elementary.

But now there’s talk about needing a high school and a middle school out there.

“People that live there see it as the only borough land in their area,” she said of the parcel set aside for the facility.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.