The steel framework for Longmont’s new Fire Station 2 is complete, and construction has begun on the building’s roof, Longmont Asst. Fire Chief Scott Snyder said Wednesday.
The new station, in the 2200 block of 17th Avenue, will replace the old Station 2 on Mountain View Avenue, which was constructed in 1967.
Two houses were demolished on 17th Avenue to make way for the new station, and a lot of material, trees and shrubs needed to be cleared, Snyder said.
“Up until recently, crews were just working in the ground and doing the storm drainage — bringing utilities in off of 17th Street and getting the foundation ready,” he explained.
The new $4.5 million station will house one engine, an ambulance and a crew of five or six people on duty around the clock, Snyder said.
“They’ll all have their own dorm room, and they’ll share a bathroom with one other dorm room,” he explained. “They’ve got a workout room, and a couple of rooms attached to the garage, where they can clean the equipment and launder their protective gear and do that sort of stuff, without having to drag it into their quarters.”
The new station will be more spacious and make crews’ jobs easier, he said.
“Station 2 is the oldest one in our system right now, and it’s got 10-foot doors, whereas modern trucks are using 14-foot doors. The ceilings are much higher in the new station, so they can actually raise the cab and do engine work or maintenance on their rig inside the building without having to pull it outside,” he explained.
“In Station 2 now we’ve got three bays, two of which will only hold a basic pickup-truck size vehicle, and the new station will have five bays — all of them will be able to hold any of our trucks.”
The new station will also include an exhaust filtration and fan system so when a truck starts, air will be pulled through the building and diesel smoke will be removed from the air, he said. To keep exhaust out of the living quarters, those rooms will be separated from the apparatus bay by a double-door airlock setup.
Some neighbors who live near the new Fire Station 2 have raised concerns about noise, but Snyder said crews don’t necessarily need to use the siren every time they leave the building.
“In this case, the siren will be pointed away from those houses,” he said. “Generally we find that once we’re in, people are OK with us as neighbors.”
The fire department expects the station to be complete by the summer of 2023, but that could change if weather causes delays, Snyder explained.
