New Fort Erie Central Fire Station

After a ten month period, construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the new fire station.  The project is on time and on budget, and the firefighters are getting excited about moving into the new facilities.  The facility has been designed large enough to accommodate all of the trucks and firefighters from station one and two, and incorporates everything required to ensure that all health and safety and accessibility standards are met, now and well into the future.The station includes 8 truck bays, separate bunker gear storage areas, showers and lockers, a small weight room, external extrication training area, and offices for the fire officers.  On the public side there is a training/meeting room, a full kitchen, serving windows, a banquet room with a capacity of approximately 120 people, two external accessible washrooms seasonally open to the public/park/museum/dog park users, enhanced parking, and a centerpiece island with flags and message signs.  The public side of the building is O.D.A. compliant. The building is serviced with a backup generator that will run the complete facility, and will be a backup Emergency Operations Center and back up town information technology centre.

Over the next six weeks, town staff will be working with the contractor and architect, testing and balancing all of the systems and looking for and correcting any deficiencies.  Equipment has already started to be moved from the two old stations,  and efforts to combine their response capabilities and associations are well under way.  We anticipate being able to start responding to emergency incidents from the station in early March.

Firefighters from all of Fort Erie stations have been invited to tour the facility this weekend, and a public open house and official opening are being planned for the spring.