Fire training tower pitched

CELINA - The Coldwater Fire Department is leading the charge to raise money to build a fire training tower, fire chief David Penno said at this week's spring township association meeting.

Plans call for constructing a $600,000-plus two-story steel structure with training rooms on property near the Coldwater Fire Department at 1020 N. Second St. Coldwater.

The tower would allow local firefighters to practice subduing live flames and carry out search and rescue and other types of training.

"It's going to be for all the fire departments," Penno said. "We have been to the county fire departments and they all are aware of this and they all have pledged money to this, just small amounts."

Penno said there is no concrete timeline but noted an unnamed sponsor has shown interest in donating half a million dollars toward the project. If the donation is made, officials may pursue fundraisers to cover the remaining amount.

There would be longterm costs, too. The facility would have to be inspected every five years by a fire engineer to the tune of $15,000.

"So the money to continue to run it is going to be a lot but the fire association has worked out a deal. We're going to hopefully sell some kind of raffle tickets," Penno said.   

After plans fell through to erect the tower at Tri Star Career Compact on State Route 703 in Celina, officials settled on land near the Coldwater Fire Department because it's centrally located, Penno said.

"There is enough room to put it in there," he said. "The village of Coldwater is going to help with a lot of … the dirt moving, the dirt work and so we can get it done cheaper."

The tower would provide a local, reliable site for training on live fires. In the past, structures slated for demolition were set ablaze for training purposes, Penno said.

The practice largely came to a halt due to Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to Penno.

"We used to go out and burn houses probably once a month," he said. "We are not allowed to do that unless you get it completely inspected."

For example, it would have cost $23,000 to remediate a house on Depweg Road before burning it. Because of the expense, firefighters trained inside of the house but dit not set it on fire.

Hence, live fire training is often done outside of the county at places such as Apollo Career Center in Lima.

"It's also going to help with trying to recruit volunteers," Penno said of the proposed fire training tower. "You try to get a volunteer to come in and you have to send them out to Lima and they have to drive three, four days a week for three months. That's a lot of wear and tear for a job that doesn't pay."

The biggest challenges impacting volunteer fire service in Ohio include recruitment and retention, time demands, financial resources at the local level and training requirements. Area fire chiefs have voiced the same concerns.

Initial volunteer certification training is a fast-paced curriculum in which large amounts of critical information are covered quickly and sometimes ineffectively, resulting in high failure rates, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of State Fire Marshal.