Chief says new fire house a game-changer
Bigger facility offers more ways to serve Lebanon.
Moving has already started as Lebanon Fire & EMS prepares to leave its old home on West Silver Street to a $6.5 million state of the art fire station and administrative offices on North Broadway Avenue.
“We’re moving full-steam ahead,” said Lebanon Fire & EMS Chief Steven Johnson.
Johnson said the new 20,000-square-foot fourbay facility is nearly twice the size of the current Station 41 that has been its home since 1982.
The current Station 41 was converted from a laundromat and has four bays, three offices, two bunk rooms, storage rooms a kitchen and day room, he said.
He said the new station can accommodate the larger, taller apparatus that is housed in another building across the street from the current station. Johnson said.
For the past few weeks as construction crews completed the last items on their lists to finish the new facility, equipment and furniture have been arriving. Johnson said he expects the new station to be fully operational by Dec. 3.
“This is a ‘game-changer,’ ” Johnson said. “We now have the ability to do so much more and the training capabilities are awesome.”
Johnson said the new training/conference room “will be huge” for the fire department and that it was already starting to be booked for future meetings in 2022.
He said the existing station was not code-compliant and the department needed to have better and adequate facilities for its personnel and equipment.
During a tour a few weeks ago, Johnson and City Manager Scott Brunka gave the Dayton Daily News a tour of the new facility which features tall, vertical folding bay doors for its apparatus.
The new station will enable firefighters to drive into the station from the rear of the building from a service road, eliminating the need of backing up into the station.
The new station has a total of 10 bunk rooms for eight firefighters, a lieutenant and a battalion chief; a kitchen, dining/day room area; conference room with a kitchenette and can be used by community groups; laundry; a stock room; storage rooms; a place to hang hose and practice going up stairwells; a training area within the building where firefighters can work to hone their skills by putting ladders, practicing different types of window entries, practice manhole rescues, etc.; a separate decontamination area with a laundry and shower for firefighters to use after putting out a fire; and a work area to review building plans.
The table where firefighters will eat their meals was built with oak and steel beams from a 100-year-old farmhouse that includes a metal Lebanon fire department emblem in the center.
In addition, there is a fitness room which will be open to other city employees such as police officers. The new station also has a safe room that has a tornado and missile impact rating.
The new facility will allow the department’s administrative offices to move from its current location at Station 42 at the intersection of Ohio 48 and Nelson Road across from the Ohio State Highway Post.
Brunka said the new facility was possible after voters approved a levy in 2018 to provide funding for the fire department. He said the site was identified following a fire response study and the city was able to purchase six acres of fairgrounds property from Warren County.
“We’re very grateful to the county to allow us to purchase that property,” he said.
The remainder of the property could be used as part of a public safety complex where a new police headquarters could be located at in the future, he said.
A community open house of the new station is being planned for January, Johnson said.