New firehouse needed in Superior

One walk through the firehouse in Superior and someone might notice that there are more than a few problems with the building that houses the Superior Volunteer Fire Department. Fire chief John Woodland knows the problems all too well. In fact, he’s been working since he arrived four and half years ago to get the department a new building.

“The process actually was started before I arrived,” Woodland said. “There was an architect hired before I arrived that was working and supposed to take the lead on grant writing and design. They never did much of anything with grant writing and when I got settled in, I started working on doing some grant writing.”

The need for a new building is something that has been an issue for awhile. The current building, Woodland said, was never built to be a fire hall and actually used to serve as a county maintenance shop before it became a home for the fire department.

One of the problems with the building is the vermiculite insulation, which means asbestos. There’s no training space for the volunteers. When they want to train in the winter, Woodland said they have to start a truck, which fills the building with exhaust fumes as there’s no exhaust system to get fumes out. It’s either that or huddle around the television in a cramped space. They have to take the truck out to set up the chairs or there’s no place to sit.

“We can’t get all of our equipment inside,” Woodland said.

A fire truck used for wildland fires sits outside and is typically unavailable during the first round of fires in the spring. Other stuff is stored outside and storage inside is cramped. There’s no hot running water and when the streets and courthouse are busy, there’s often no place for volunteers to park.

“We can’t pull the trucks out without blocking the road,” Woodland said. 

Trucks also take up space inside, blocking access to other things in the building. There’s not a shower in the station, which Woodland said would be ideal for if they ever ran into a hazmat situation.

Turnout gear is also an issue. Typically hard to get into, it lines the walls and is fairly close to the trucks. Some of the turnout gear sits where the exhaust from the truck goes. Firefighters are trained to avoid toxic fumes at fires by wearing air packs, but in Superior they cannot avoid them in their station. Other times, suspenders could get caught on a moving tire’s chains. It’s not safe. The doors that open have to be pushed up as far as they can go and if the equipment on the truck isn’t in place, it can catch. Water comes in under the doors and walls and guys have to keep gear up off the floor. The building also suffers heat loss.

Currently, the fire department has secured a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for $346,500. The funds will be distributed once the remaining funds are approved.

“We have to come up with the rest of the money,” Woodland said.

The City of Superior has $112,500.00 set aside for the project and on May 10, the Town will be asking for the approval of its voters to borrow, through bonds, $498,000.00 to complete the funding of this project.

The volunteers plan to do whatever they can to reduce costs, such as supplying labor for interior painting. The project is also being planned so that Town offices can be added later, sharing some elements such as the training/meeting room. If the bond is not approved, the CDBG grant will be lost.

Woodland said that he feels the timing of this request works out very well for the taxpayers of Superior. A previous bond for the construction of the elementary school will be paid off in July 2012. While it is not known when the payments on the fire hall bond would start, it is likely to be around the same time that the school bonds would expire. The only thing that might happen is one overlapping payment.

Based on estimates of the interest rate that will apply to these bonds, the cost is expected to be the same or a little lower than what was paid off on the school bond. No increase in tax bills is expected. Estimates are that a property assessed at $100,000.00 will pay $55.92 per year toward the new fire hall, which is less than $5.00 per month. For the same $100,000.00 property, we calculate the amount of the payment for the school bond at $59.03, so the impact of these two items is estimated to be a $3.11 reduction.

Woodland said that they applied for other grants, but they did not receive anything. He said that aren’t planning for anything fancy, just functional. The station would hold six trucks in three truck bays. They would be able to pull all the way through rather than have to back in.

“It’s going to probably be a metal building, but we want to make it as energy efficient as possible,” Woodland said. “We have to get funding lined up or we’re going to lose the money we have.”

Woodland said that anyone is invited to stop by the current fire hall any time to ask questions and see why the facility is overdue to be replaced.