Firefighters enjoy camping out

Firefighters enjoy camping out
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Jan. 19, 2003

They jokingly call themselves the trailer park boys, but, for the next 18 months, the firefighters who work out of the old #2 Fire Hall on Edmonds Street are in fact going to be more like campers in the middle of a city.
Last November, the 48-year-old single-storey fire hall was closed forever, and the two seven-person crews that served the southeast side of the city were moved into temporary quarters.
In place of the dank and mouldy old fire hall, the crews are now temporarily housed in a clean, new portable trailer, while their two trucks - a ladder truck and engine - are housed underneath a giant, steel-supported tent.
"Sure, it's a bit of an inconvenience, having to walk outside to the trucks whenever there's a call, but we still have a good job," said Captain Brian Davis, head of the crew that was on shift Wednesday afternoon. "It'll be really nice when we get the new hall."
Replacing the old Hall #2 is the third phase of the long-term fire department improvement program that started almost a decade ago under the leadership of former Burnaby mayor and one-time assistant fire chief Bill Copeland.
At the time, firefighters were complaining about cramped quarters and unsafe working conditions in a variety of the city's old fire halls, most of which were built in the early 50s and many of which needed thousands of dollars of renovations in order to meet current earthquake and post-disaster readiness standards.
The first fire hall to be replaced was the city's busiest, Hall #3 in the Metrotown area, and that's when the idea of using temporary quarters was first tested.
During the construction phase of the new #3 Hall, which opened in 1996, fire crews and trucks were relocated into a pair of the giant tents on Kingsborough Street, the site of the new Hilton Hotel Metrotown.
The next time Burnaby rebuilt an old fire hall ws just two years ago, when the #5 Hall at Hastings and Willingdon was torn down and replaced by a new facility just two blocks up the road. (Because the new hall was being built in a separate location, temporary quarters were not necessary.)
In fact, when the old #5 Hall came down, many firefighters felt a sense of nostalgia for north Burnaby's venerated old fire hall. But not so for the Edmonds hall.
The small fire hall on the southeast side of the city was notorious mainly for its rank smell. Apparently the basement of the old hall was constantly flooded and the water filled up almost to the floorboard on a regular basis.
The hall's main deficiency was the fact it failed to meet 'post- disaster standards' and it would have been of questionable use to the city in the event of a major earthquake.
The old hall also was also too small and was renovated several time in the past two decades to fit the new larger, and taller fire trucks now used by the city.
The hall also had only one washroom - a no-no in today's world where female firefighters share quarters with their male counterparts - and the added aggravation of insufficient space for the workout facilities. (It was impossible to use the exercise space anytime the fire trucks were being used, because the vehicle exhaust was vented right into the workout area.)
But when the design plans for the new #2 fire hall are made public later this month, Burnaby fire chief Bob Cook says all those problems will be solved.
The new fire hall will be substantially larger , too. It will have three truck bays, including one that will be used as storage space until the city's population grows large enough to require another truck.
Cook, the fire chief responsible for the project, expects the new Edmonds fire hall to cost about the same as the new, $2.7 million #5 hall on Hastings Street.
Another change that will take effect when the new Edmonds fire hall opens its doors in the latter half of 2004, will be the closure of 19th Avenue, and the cul de sacing of what is currently the hall's rear lane way access.
"Right now, were just in the middle of the panning stage for the new hall, but the finished designs should be ready soon," Cook said. "Hopefully, we'll award the contract in march and begin work either that month or in April. the plan is to open the new hall 12 months after that."
Cook also said that city hall continues to review its fire hall replacement program, and plans are in the works to either rebuild the 1950-era #4 fire hall on Duthie Street, or else build a completely new fire hall in whichever area of the city sees the most substantial growth in the next few years.
"What we do next all depends on the growth of the city," Cook said. "right now there are new homes being built over the south sloe, up at SFU and around Burnaby Mountain. What happens there dictates to us what we do next."