Cold Spring Debuts New Fire Hall

(KNSI) — Several turns of the wrench and a very unique ribbon cutting ceremony officially marked the opening of the Cold Spring Fire Hall on Saturday.

Officials held a long hose which they disconnected at the joint rather than using scissors and cloth. When asked what stands out to him about the new facility, Fire Chief Dan Weber replies with a smirk that the trucks look like Tonka toys in the expansive apparatus bay.

He adds, “We needed the space because of our trucks being so big nowadays and things like that, and just the magnitude of the building being so high, it’s just part of what we needed to have for our [National Fire Protection Association] NFPA standards.

In the previous station, some of the equipment, such as that used to fight grass fires, had to be shuffled off-site when it wasn’t in season. Trucks were spaced inches apart from front to back and within arm’s length from side to side. Weber says the extra room means a new side-by-side and possibly a new boat will be bought soon.

Another defining feature is a two-story tower that Weber says can be used for sharpening skills in between incidents. “The outside, we have the windows there. We can have a ladder that goes up to train. Inside, we have standpipes that we can use for when we’re in apartments to hook up our hose to a standpipe inside the apartments.”

The tower also has a hoist, which he says is good practice for getting hoses into taller buildings. Weber says there is also space for hanging out the hose after a run, which helps it to dry out and avoid the formation of mold.

The public got to see the building for the first time on Saturday, but department alumni got a special walk through the weekend before. Cold Spring Fire has been using it since the beginning of the month.

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