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Lange had to relocate his workspace to a closet after his office was repurposed into sleeping quarters.
CELINA - Fire chief Joel Lange now calls a closet his workspace after his office was converted into sleeping quarters for the department's sole female firefighter.
The fire department's main sleeping area also functions as a training/meeting room; the kitchen, bathrooms and showers are woefully small; and maneuvering fire trucks in and out of the bays can be tricky, particularly in inclement weather.
And with no decontamination facility, firefighters often walk around covered in soot after returning from fire runs.
Leading a tour through the building, Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel on Thursday morning pointed to the command station of sorts, a wall of monitors with dispatch information, weather conditions and other data that serves as the backup to the Mercer County Sheriff's Office 911 dispatch center. It's situated in the back of the ambulance bay facing East Livingston Street.
Celina Fire Chief Joel Lange gleans information from a series of monitors set up in the back of the fire department's ambulance bays.
"But even within here, when they have all their monitoring and their run board up here, this is backed right up to the ambulances," Hazel remarked. "They have utilized every inch of space in here they can utilize."
Fire personnel get by as best they can, but it's undoubtedly time for a major upgrade, Hazel argued.
"They really have done a great job utilizing what they have," he said. "But … we've recognized for a number of years there's an inadequacy of just the facilities itself."
City councilors heard the call loud and clear. They're poised to give their blessing to a $70,000-plus feasibility study of city hall to determine how to proceed with modernizing and expanding the space-strapped fire department.
"We certainly made it a commitment on the fire department because we needed to move forward. It's been put off for a long time," Hazel said at this week's regular council meeting.
Built in 1890, city hall houses Celina Municipal Court, the fire department and the police dispatch center. Fire personnel who perform 24-hour shifts have had to make do with confined spaces and inadequate living accommodations.
A proposed feasibility study would determine if there's enough space to the north to add onto the Celina Fire Department, located within city hall built in 1892.
"We've had the same building since 1890, and so as our fire department has grown, our equipment has gotten larger. The quarters are cramped, there's no real training room," Hazel said. "How do we best house our fire department to make it the most responsive, the most convenient to get out to our customers, if you would, or fires or paramedic calls?"
Celina has the only full-time fire department, one that doubles as a Mercer County Emergency Medical Services branch. At the moment, there are about 15 fire/EMS personnel cross-trained in several areas, including rescue diving, confined space rescue, fire inspection and hazardous materials.
They went on 2,209 combined EMS/fire runs in 2023 and are already on pace to surpass that figure this year.
"I would put our guys up against anybody in the county," Hazel boasted. "I've seen the work they've done and I'm proud of our abilities, our capabilities of what we do. We have a very high level of professionalism and expertise."
In addition to its ambulance bays, the fire department has fire vehicle bays facing Main Street. Altogether, there's room to cram in about 10 fire vehicles and county ambulances, with two kept outside, according to Lange.
The study will provide city officials with several project options and cost estimates to accommodate fire/EMS personnel and fire department vehicles and ambulances well into the future.
"The concern moving forward is evaluating what financial resources it would take to convert the existing facility into a modern-day, functional, safe environment, for the fire department and Celina," a study proposal states. "Among the major challenges will be current code requirement issues, electrical and mechanical systems, technology support, the existing construction techniques and the various floor models developed over the years, hazardous material abatement, appropriate infrastructure and additional site related challenges."
There weren't enough councilors present at this week's regular council meeting to suspend the rules requiring three public readings and pass the legislation as an emergency measure.
Thus, councilors will convene for a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday to likely approve the feasibility study ordinance and vote on other items, including a new contract with police sergeants.
The ordinance in question would appropriate $77,000, which includes 10% contingency, for the feasibility study to be undertaken by Mull & Weithman Architects Inc. of Columbus.
"They seem to have the expertise, the background," Hazel said. "The fire chief, of course, was in on these interviews as well because it impacts the fire department and city hall."
Hazel said the study should take about 90 days.
The study will determine if there is enough space to the north to add onto the fire department.
"They have done a very good job of maintaining this very old structure, a historic structure, so we're not talking about demolition here, we're talking about, 'How do you expand?'" Hazel stressed.
The fire department's sleeping area also doubles as a training/meeting room.
The Spriggs building at 216 N. Main St. was razed last summer in anticipation of Mercer County eventually handing over the property to the city for a fire department expansion.
The fire department was last furnished with additional space in 2015 when city officials spent roughly $75,000 to renovate the former Winkeljohn Printing building at 212 N. Main St.
The renovation involved installing a back garage door to allow for storage of the rescue truck, pickup truck and boat. Repairs to electric heaters and gas lines were included in the project.
Officials had said the extra space in the Winkeljohn building was helpful but noted the department would eventually need a training room and bigger squad bays for ambulances.
Mull & Weithman Architects will analyze the shortfalls of the fire department and identify spaces necessary to turn it into a modern facility that will serve the city and citizens for the next 50-plus years, per the proposal.
They'll study potential additions and renovations and come up with cost estimates.
Additionally, the architects will examine potential sites for a new facility for city officials to weigh against a renovation of the current fire department.
"(They) want to take a step back and look at the pros and cons of the required renovation including the associated expenses and limitations of the existing facility and site, in comparison to looking at a new, free-standing facility in a different location," the proposal states. "A couple potential sites for a new facility have been identified, and this study will evaluate them for the department's relocation."
At a city council meeting in December, Hazel said an air quality study of city hall detected the presence of non-harmful mold but no traces of asbestos or lead in the air.
An environmental review was conducted ahead of the feasibility study.
"We did do that early on because one of our dispatchers was expecting at the time and we wanted to make sure the area or the air was safe," Hazel said. "There is what's called non-harmful mold," he said. "It's the same stuff that's outside that you breathe. There's a lesser amount that's inside the building."
Mold levels were more prevalent on the first floor because of the frequent opening and closing of doors, according to Hazel.
