A roomy, functional firehouse opens
It’s a 13,000-square-foot station costing $6 million in Pasadena
Home is the place you hang your hat — and your bunker gear. After 74 years, the firefighters of the Lake Shore Volunteer Fire Company in Pasadena finally have a proper place to do just that. All it took was three county executives, at least six senators, two fire chiefs, three groundbreakings and two ribbon cuttings to open Anne Arundel County Fire Station 20 Lake Shore.
Located at 4642 Mountain Road, the 13,000-square-foot station cost $6 million and was paid through 30-year bonds. It’s been almost a decade since Anne Arundel County built a fire station, but the Lake Shore project is the first of four planned over the next six years. Several others are being renovated.
“I’d be lying if I said it was an easy process. It was a process indeed,” Capt. Joe Cvach said at the station’s opening. He is the senior career officer at the station, which is shared with the volunteer company.
In lieu of a ribbon cutting, the firehouse was opened with the uncoupling of a fire hose on July 31. Firefighters will hold an open house onNov. 3.
When a fire on Easter Monday 1944, destroyedmuchof Lake Shore, North Shore and parts of Sillery Bay, the Pasadena community rallied to create the Lake Shore Volunteer Fire Company. Two years later, the first stationwas built about a mile away fromthe new location.
Anne Arundel County has a combined fire fighting force, made up of both career and volunteer firefighters.
As Lake Shore added career drivers in the 1970s and grew into a 24/7 four-career personnel staff providing fire and EMS services, that original fire station became tight, dark and in disrepair.
“I must admit, it was bittersweet leaving the old station,” Chief Timothy Hall said through tears at the opening of the new station. He spent13 years at the old location.
“This station is definitelywhatweneed… We all needed it.”
Many of the volunteer firefighters grew up in the old station, and haven’t visited the new station yet. They still hold events like food truck night at the old station.
They’re just not ready, said Hall’s wife, volunteer fire Capt. Lisa Hall. They’d still
like to renovate it and keep it in use.
Now the Halls’ 5-year-old grandson, TJ Hall, is growing up in the new station. He wanders around the massive kitchen, runs between their two engines and ambulance in the garage with three drive-through bays and watches his cartoons on a lounge chair in the day room.
He’s not the only one wandering. The new station has more space and light than the firefighters knowwhat to do with.
At the old station, youcouldn’t open a fire engine door without knocking into something. Firefighters had to share lockers.
“You hope you grab the right uniform set. I admit I did put on someone else’s pants one day,” Cvach laughed.
Cvach said staff could all be working in different areas of the old firehouse and still be able to yell and hear each other. While unpacking and getting the new station ready, hewent to yell and realized he’d need to page someone to reach them.
Now, the 20-foot-by-40-foot kitchen and eating area of the new station could swallowmost of their old station.
“Having a kitchen the size of our old station’s living quarters is overwhelming, to say the least,” Cvach said. “But it’s a good overwhelming feeling.”
The kitchen and eating area is host to fire-family dinners. For $40 a day, firefighters feed themselves twomeals. Cvach is the chef of his shift, usually.
Cooking for a squad of hungry firefighters would be overwhelming for most, but for Cvach it’s the most relaxing part of his shift.
“It’s the one time I can’t yell at anyone. The food’s not going to get in trouble if something goes wrong, so it’s my time to relax,” Cvach said.
That relaxation is required.
“Food time is family time,” Cvach said. Phones get turned off. Even those who chose to meal prep instead of buying into that night’s meal will join everyone to eat together. They eat Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas breakfast together like any other family, but if they get a call they have to come back and eat it cold.
When they do have a few minutes after stuffing their bellies, firefighters can kick back in the day room where six comfy chairs are perched in front of a large flat-screen television.
“It’s a quiet room for people to relax, put their feet up and take a nap,” Hall said.
The serious sleeping is done in the bunk rooms.
The locker rooms, four bathrooms and two bunk rooms aren’t separated by gender. The Lakeshore squad is more concerned with keeping career firefighters and volunteers separate. When one group is sleeping (or attempting to), the other can get ready and come in for their shift.
Like many homes, the firehouse has a laundry room. Unlike many homes, it also has a 30-foot-by-20-foot gym with cardio and endurance equipment. At the old station, Cvach recalled having to work out in the parking lot or squeezed between the fire engines.
Light is something the firefighters missed in the old station. Crew areas of the old station had just one windowin the back and one in the front.
“It felt like I was at the bottom of a boat where all you have is the porthole,” Hall said.
Now, there are more than two dozen windows including the half-glass entry and full-glass patio doors. The rest of the station is lit by energy-saving LED lights.
“The increased lighting provides for a much brighter setting on a sometimes somber day,” Cvach said.
One feature not included: fire poles. It’s a ranch-style station.
“It’s just a big house with a really big garage,” said Capt. Russ Davies, spokesman for the county fire department..
Though every firefighter has his or her own homes and families to return to, the fire station serves as a second home. Career firefighters work four, 24-hour shifts a week, with half of that time spent in the station. That’s two days of aweek spent just in the station.
“Now that we know we have a space that’s ample to come home to, it’s easier to gooutoncalls, get thingsdoneandknowwe have a place to come back and relax,” Cvach said.