“I mean, right now we wash our hoses out in the parking lot.”
Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue (SSIFR) Chief Jamie Holmes was leading district trustees past an unassuming square hole, where he explained a modern hose washing system will soon be installed. Built into the side of the future hose tower at his department’s nearly complete new Fire Hall No. 1, it’s among several remarkable details highlighted during a tour for the fire board and a few other community members held Saturday, Dec. 6.
Holmes explained the washer can pressure-clean a fire hose immediately after firefighters return from a call, pulling it directly off the truck and through that small hole — after which a hoist raises lengths of hose straight up into the tower to dry. It’s the sort of thoughtful feature found throughout the new hall, extending the service life of valuable equipment and multiplying the efficiency of the structure.
Like a lot of things here, the hose tower isn’t just for hoses.
“There’s anchors all the way up, so we can rappel off the side, and we have openings on the front to practise laddering,” said Holmes. “Everything we could think of, if we could find room in the budget to ‘future-proof’ something, we took the opportunity.”
The large central bay is being built with double doors at either end, potentially allowing four vehicles at a time to sit in a nose-out, ready-to-go configuration. Instead of attaching a ducting hose to each fire truck’s exhaust pipe, the climate-controlled and lightly pressurized space has central air scrubbers, allowing speedy flexibility if trucks need to be rearranged.
The building reclaims waste heat from almost every process, to either warm the truck bay or help dry firefighters’ gear between calls. There’s a workshop space — think small engine repair and maintenance for things like chainsaws — well-removed from a clean room where breathing apparatus and personal safety equipment can be carefully decontaminated and maintained.
The entire east side of the building was constructed to make future expansion in that direction easier, and the west side — where rainfall from a fire-engine-sized attached “carport” is directed into 30,000 gallons of underground water storage — can be “walled in” relatively quickly and at comparatively little expense, should the department find itself needing more indoor vehicle space.
Every nook and cranny has at least one purpose, and usually several, Holmes said; from under-stair storage spaces to flexible meeting rooms that can be configured into different sizes — or repurposed in an instant into an extension of the building’s emergency operations centre, supporting multiple agencies in a disaster. Holmes said amongst the fire-resistant xeriscape planned for near the building — and inside a perimeter “foodscape” along the fences he said will include berry patches — they’re pouring a small RV pad, perfect for visiting training or maintenance contractors from off-island, or even staff.
“In the future we believe housing will continue to be an issue,” said Holmes. “So worst-case scenario, maybe somebody coming into a job here could at least park an RV in the back and have somewhere to lay their head while they were trying to find secure housing.”
The new hall is expected to be fully operational by an official opening on May 3.