THUNDER BAY -- Saying goodbye to the 64-year-old Brown Street fire station is bittersweet for some firefighters.
“We were really part of the community over there. People stopped by and bring you stuff from their garden and we know the people,” said firefighter Scott Valila.
However, the station had become too small to accommodate modern fire equipment and a new facility was needed.
Fire Station 6 on the corner of Neebing Avenue and Frederica Street was officially commissioned Wednesday, the second of Thunder Bay Fire Rescue’s two modern fire stations outlined in the strategic master fire plan. The other station was commissioned in October on 20th Side Road.
“It’s a little bit of a change,” said Valila. “It’s nice to have a hall we can fit all of our new equipment into.”
Station 6 will be fully staffed and operational by Monday and the former Brown Street station will be renovated and used by Superior North EMS as a satellite station.
Fire chief John Hay said response times will be improved to six minutes in the new location and said they always do everything they can whenever there is a chance to expand their level of service.
“Our service is very concerned with response times. That’s why station location is scientific rather than political now,” he said.
The new station also has a new fire pumper.
Hay said they held back on buying equipment for the Brown Street station because modern fire apparatus just didn’t fit in the building.
“We ran with older vehicles that required a lot of maintenance,” he said.
Westfort Coun. Joe Virdiramo said when the fire station was in its planning stages, he was surprised the city didn’t hear any pushback from the community on its location and that he believes the station is an important community asset because of the improvement in response times.
“This is a safety issue for the community,” he said. “It’s positive all the way.”
The Neebing and Westfort fire stations and the Brown Street retrofit will cost about $7 million.
The two new stations also meet the city’s gold standard of the Clean, Green and Beautiful policy.
