A new fire hall to be built on the edge of Welland's downtown core has been a long time coming, says the president of the Welland Professional Fire Fighters Association.

"Obviously we're very happy, very pleased," Mark Biggins, who heads up Local 481 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said of the first phase of the project that includes a new headquarters and training centre.

Welland city council approved $6 million in the 2019 budget for the new Welland Fire and Emergency Services facility. It will be located on the grounds of former Atlas Steels on East Main Street between Ross Street and Patterson Avenue.

"We have been very active on social media in support of the (fire) chief and deputy chief and the management team of the city. We feel this is an important step in protecting the citizens of Welland and advancing fire safety," said Biggins.

Welland's career firefighters came out in full support during city budget deliberations, filling council chambers when Chief Brian Kennedy made his pitch to council.

In an email, Kennedy said every chief over the past 35 years has tried to move station construction forward, each time inching the bar a little further.

"This is a huge investment in public safety for the residents of Welland and it gives our staff the tools required to continue to deliver excellent emergency response to our community for many years," he said.

Deputy Fire Chief Adam Eckhart said not only will the new fire hall improve response times, but it will also be a morale booster for members of the service.

"We'll be moving out of a 70-year-old building into a new one."

The King Street station, which started off as Crowland Township Hall, is bot designed for today's larger rescue vehicles.

Biggins said he works with a fantastic group of people and holds Welland's firefighters in high regard for coping with deficiencies in recent years.

"They do a very good job with the tools they have been given to this point, but some of those tools - the facilities where ceilings leak and sewage enters the building - and constant issues are trying on the guys. We need to be 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time, that is what the citizens expect and what we expect," Biggins said.

One thing that will improve as soon as firefighters, training, fire prevention and administrative staff move into the new hall is assembly time, the deputy chief said. That's the amount of time it takes from when alarms sound in the building to when firefighters get in the trucks and leave.

During his report to council, Kennedy said under National Fire Protection Association standards, the time, also known as turnout time, should be 80 seconds.

That time isn't being reached at Station 1 at 950 East Main St. On average, it takes firefighters nearly two minutes to get their trucks at that station, while at the other stations it only takes firefighters an average of 72 seconds to assemble.

Eckhart said King Street fire hall is a maze as it consists of three buildings, while other stations firefighters have to navigate stairwells and hallways to make it to their vehicles. He said having a fire hall located downtown will also improve response times across the city, especially to the busy north end.

Biggins said there is a separation between the truck floor and firefighters at Station 1 inside Welland Hydro's building - always intended to be a temporary home.

"When we're dealing with an emergency, seconds count. Anyone who has ever had to call 911 because they need our help, they want us there now, not 10 seconds later, not six or seven minutes later. Anything we can do to decrease the time it takes us to get to them is absolutely a move in bettering fire safety," Biggins said.

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Eckhart said the fire service will work with whatever architect is hired on the design of the new fire hall.

"We're going to have a wash bay - a decontamination bay - for the trucks, people, and gear so they can be cleaned and then move over into the response bays," said Eckhart.

When the new station is complete - no date has been set for construction to start - firefighters and vehicles from Station 1 will be moved into the King Street station, while all equipment and manpower from there will be moved to the new East Main Street site.

Volunteer fire stations 4 and 5 will close and be moved into the new headquarters, and the city and fire service will look to future locations for new halls with the end goal of closing King Street and the station on Prince Charles Drive.

Eckhart said having the volunteers under the same roof as the career firefighters will be good for the fire service and residents.

"It's very difficult to build relationships when they are spread across the city. We're designed to train and operate as one team, and being under the same roof will increase the interoperability and further build those relationships," said the deputy chief, who was looking forward to the new headquarters.

Biggins said firefighters aren't looking at the new station as just a "shiny new building."

"Is it going to be that? Absolutely. It is going to revitalize the downtown? Absolutely. All of that stuff helps. I'm looking at it for the safety of our members. Will it be comfortable? We deal with a lot of stress on the job on the types of calls we go to," he said.

"We consider it to be a house, our second home. The physical building needs to be a place where we can be comfortable in, a place to decompress and de-stress. There needs to be something in the physical nature of the building itself that will allow for that to happen," Biggins said.

Nathaniel.Johnson@niagaradailies.com

905-684-7251 | @DaveJTheTrib