Gig Harbor Fire may ask voters to help fund live fire training tower, station updates
A live fire training tower and station upgrades estimated to cost tens of millions are part of Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One’s capital facilities plan that will go before the Board of Fire Commissioners this week.
Chief Dennis Doan said a bond to fund some of those projects might be on the ballot in August, though how many and the total cost would be decided by the commissioners in coming months.
An architectural firm found the training facility and rebuilding or renovating stations and other buildings would cost about $118 million, but Doan said not all that work would be done immediately and that the cost estimates for the projects are rough.
“We’re definitely not going to do that whole $118 million,” he said.
For instance, he said, Station 54 in Arletta, which isn’t staffed by paid firefighters and is instead covered by some of the agency’s few remaining volunteers, could probably be remodeled later as the agency grows.
The $6.6 million training facility, a $28.3 million rebuild of the department’s busiest station and probably seven-figure updates to two others are more immediate needs, he said.
“I think we are headed to a bond, and I do think our training facility is one of our highest priorities,” Doan said. “... We just need to decide how much of that plan needs to be funded immediately through a bond.”
Some variables that would affect cost estimates are that the plan is still being adjusted and that the cost of construction materials changes over time.
“Really, you don’t know your number until you go out to bid,” Doan said.
He called the plans for the training facility “shovel ready.” They were drawn up in 2007, but it wasn’t built due to the economic recession.
Instead, he said, the department sends firefighters to such places as Central Pierce Fire & Rescue and North Bend to get their required live fire training.
Without its own training facility, a firefighter might only get that live training once every several years, Doan said. The first time someone is fighting a fire shouldn’t be on your home, Doan explained.
The levels of the five-story tower that’s proposed would have different environments for crews to practice in. Part of it might have a pitched roof like a house. Another floor might mimic apartments, with multiple doors and rooms. One floor might be laid out like a commercial building.
It would use gas fire props (think a propane patio campfire) that can be shut off immediately with a button.
“Live fire training is very dangerous, so we want to have a safe place to do it,” Doan said. “... It comes down to firefighter safety.”
The agency has more than 100 firefighters and serves 53,000 people. It has an annual budget of about $30 million, with 83 percent of that budget going to wages and benefits, Doan said.
‘Bursting at the seams’
The population of the Gig Harbor Fire district has grown more than 16 percent and calls for service have increased 50 percent since 2010, the agency said.
“We have grown the department, and the city has grown so much over the last few years,” Doan said. “... We’re bursting at the seams right now.”
Many of the stations are more than 40 years old, and they don’t meet seismic requirements or Americans with Disabilities Act standards. They were built for an exclusively male workforce, and the agency has outgrown them, he said.
“Our stations were built in the mid ‘80s from a bond back then, and we are hiring a more diverse workforce each and every day,” Doan said.
Of six firefighters he just hired, five are women. The stations need bathrooms, showers and living quarters that will accommodate the agency’s workforce going forward, he said.
The station updates also include decontamination areas and equipment for crews to clean carcinogens from their gear and decontaminate medical equipment.
Doan noted that cancer is a leading cause of death among firefighters, and that agencies are “learning more and more every day about how to keep those carcinogens out of our living quarters.”
The architectural firm Rice Fergus Miller helped put together the capital facilities plan that estimated rebuilding Station 51 at 6711 Kimball Dr. would cost $28.3 million. As for Station 59 in Artondale and 58 in Swede Hill — the other stations Doan suspected might be part of a bond next year — the firm’s plan estimated renovations would cost $8.3 million and $7.9 million respectively.
Beyond the $118 million estimate that accounts for the agency’s buildings, Doan said, the capital facilities plan also includes other items such as fire engines and ambulances.
Engines are about $800,000 each and last about 12 to 15 years. Gig Harbor has two from 2010, two from 2009 and three from 2008, Doan said. The department is looking to purchase a couple new medic units using its budget this year as well, which cost about $350,000.
Some of the overall capital facilities plan could be funded through the agency’s budget, he explained. Outside that, it would have to look to a state loan program and to voter-approved bonds.
They’re working on a federal grant for air packs, the equipment firefighters use to breathe in smokey conditions, which Doan said will cost about $1.7 million.
He’ll go over the plan with the board at its meeting Tuesday, they’ll have public feedback, and he said Dec. 14 the commissioners would make adjustments and adopt it.
As far as what a bond might cost the average homeowner, Doan said it’s too early to say.
“I don’t know how big or small they’re going to go,” he said. “... We’re just not quite there yet.”
He said it would probably be January or February when commissioners make a decision on the actual number that would go to voters.
