Where to Build?

In my experience, the most important issue involved in either building a new fire station to replace an old, outdated station or building a new one in a growing area of the community is site selection. This decision drives all the subsequent decisions for the project.

Initial considerations

No single issue can derail a fire station construction project more than that of finding and obtaining an adequate site. Let’s consider some of the factors that make this such a key issue:

1. The costs of obtaining a site that meets the response criteria of the emergency services department can be an obstacle that oftentimes can’t be overcome.
2. There is usually no “perfect “site, but rather a series of compromises that provide a “good” or “workable” site.
3. The process of site acquisition can be arduous. In a perfect world, the community owns the site, and site purchase costs can be rolled into the construction of the station itself. Most often, however, the site is privately owned and there may or may not be a willing seller, in which case the unpopular “eminent domain” option may be the only recourse to acquire the site.
4. If a department identifies a site that meets all the response criteria but it is located in a busy commercial area, government leaders are extremely hesitant to remove the property from the tax rolls.
5. Then there is the donated land issue. My experience tells me that land donated by someone in the community seldom meets the response criteria, size or program requirements identified by department staff.

Regardless of the situation, getting a site that meets current and future emergency response demands can be a complicated process filled with a series of compromises. With that in mind, my advice is take your time and explore all the options that you have.

Response time factors

My previous experience as a fire chief underscored that when considering the construction of a new fire station, the terms “building site” and “response times” are virtually inseparable. A community can have a city-owned site with adequate square feet totals to meet the program requirements, literally no elevation issues that need to be addressed, all required infrastructure already on the site, but if it doesn’t provide a reduced response time to its designated response area, that site fails to meet the most critical evaluation factor.

In considering potential sites within a community, acceptable response times within the station’s geographic response area, along with other factors, will become one of the most critical factors. To achieve an acceptable response time, a careful analysis should be conducted that includes more than simply evaluating the distance from then proposed site to the borders of its response limits. Certainly this distance is very important to response; however, there are many other important factors that should be considered in this review. The following information is offered to assist in evaluating potential sites:

• The site must be located on, or adjacent to, a main travel artery that provides good access, egress, visibility for responding fire department emergency apparatus, and adequate public alerting of the fire department incoming and departing fire equipment.
• The site location, and its proximity to a main artery, should provide acceptable access to secondary streets that allow the fire department to effectively respond throughout its response areas.
• The main response artery should have adequate street/shoulder width and shoulder construction for private automobiles, trucks with trailers, over the road truck/trailers, buses, etc., to safely pull off to the side of the road when a fire or EMS apparatus is coming up behind them.
• Try to find a site where the main response artery is not a funneling point for industrial traffic or on/off-loading of supplies, products or employees that can cause response delays.
• Look for a site in which the main response artery doesn’t include an overabundance of traffic controls, such as stop signs or stop lights that could cause delays as a result of local traffic trying to find a safe place to get out of the way of responding fire apparatus.
• Unless it is impossible to avoid, the site should not have significant commercial development where consumer traffic congestion could hamper emergency response or commuter safety.
• Try to stay away from the main artery that have schools, churches or other population-dense developments that are located on it that may present a safety hazard for fire vehicles and the general public.

• Avoid railroad tracks that could impede fire apparatus from using main arteries or that could cause significant backups in traffic. If there are railroad tracks, will private vehicles be able to safely get out of the way of fire apparatus? On this note, another factor is whether the use of the rail line is a mainline track, where trains pass through the area, or one where there is a great amount of “switching cars” in industrial facilities that use rail transport systems for loading and off-loading supplies or merchandise. The time of the intersection being closed can greatly influence a site’s desirability.

Further, the site should provide rapid response to community “target hazards” that have been identified by the fire department. Target hazards can be defined as buildings that pose extreme threats from significant delays in response. This could include sites that use, store or handle hazardous materials; buildings that, because of their construction or materials that are stored at the location, can lead to rapid fire development; facilities that house community members who have health- or age-related issues that may require fire department staffing intervention in escape; areas of the community where water shortage or inadequate water volume and/or pressure could overwhelm the fire department’s ability to extinguish the fire; and areas of the community where construction of older buildings with common fire walls are located.

Downtown buildings normally fit into this category because they often share common firewalls, which in many cases have been breached in one form or another, and can cause significant flame spread to attached buildings. Additionally, older buildings that typically lack early warning fire detection systems with direct tie-in to 9-1-1 center communications systems or other monitoring facilities fit as well. This lack of warning provides an opportunity for a fire to expand significantly within a building or to an adjacent building before being reported to a communications center.

Clear traffic

There are technological tools to assist in making a high-traffic site more acceptable. One of those tools is the Opticom Traffic Intervention System. This tool uses an electronic beam to change traffic signals for responding fire apparatus in areas of high-density traffic flows that are controlled by electric traffic signals. Typically, the beam coming from a responding piece of fire apparatus changes a traffic light for cross traffic to red and through traffic (or the responding fire apparatus) to green, thereby clearing the intersection in front of the fire apparatus. This option can be vital in traffic-congested areas. There are also hardline connections to traffic signal controls near the station to help clear traffic as emergency equipment clear the station.

In sum

Again, a “perfect” site location may be impossible, but a “good” site is not impossible to find in an established community that provides an acceptable answers and compromises to all the response issues listed above. Take your time, and remember that this may be the single most important decision of the entire project.