Black Canyon Fire welcomes public to new home

MARC BUCKHOUT~ 12/28/2011

In an industry where seconds can mean the difference between life or death the Black Canyon Fire Department was left waiting for more than a year and a half for a new home.
But as 2012 appears on the horizon Fire Chief Thomas Birch said he’s glad the issues that hindered the completion of the department’s new station, located at 35050 S. Old Black Canyon Highway, are a thing of the past.
At 10 a.m., Jan. 21 the Black Canyon Fire District Board of Directors is hosting a grand opening event to give Black Canyon’s 5,000 plus residents a chance to see the 10,000 square foot building with a 6,000 square foot apparatus bay.
“Were going to have a big grand opening,” he said. “The public was frustrated with all the delays and rightfully so. We were all frustrated, but I think they’re excited now that it’s complete.”
A project that started in March of 2009 and was scheduled to be completed within nine months didn’t get completed until this summer.
The initial construction of the station went awry when cracks in the foundation were discovered in the apparatus bay, which now houses the department’s seven vehicles.
Birch said the rebar to reinforce the floor wasn’t placed at the correct depth, in the middle
of the concrete.
“It was about 70 percent of the floor that didn’t meet specifications,” he said.
Efforts to get the contracting company to fix the floor were left at a standstill when
the company filed for bankruptcy in February of 2010.
Despite having bond protection the department had to wait through extensive litigation before a new contractor could come in to fix the floors in March of 2011.
“The original floor in a lot of places simply wasn’t going to support the weight of the trucks,” he said. “They pulled the floors and started over.”
Despite all the issues Birch said Black Canyon tax payers can rest easy knowing that the project, eventually stayed under its $1.5 million.
While the initial build came to $1.3 million, the additional expenses to pay attorneys, an architect to analyze the problems with the initial build and then a second contractor to fix the problems came to more than $406,000. That brought the project in at a total of $1.71 million, but through mediation the fire department was able to recoup $414,000 in August.
For Birch, who has been with the department since 1996, the new facility has made a world of difference for a department that staffs nine full-time firefighters and 32 reserves. While the physical distance from old department to new is only .6 of a mile, the differences in terms of day-to-day operations are night and day.
 “The other building, which was built in the 1980s, was a great building, but we had outgrown it,” he said. “That entire station would fit inside our apparatus bay. Over there we could only get two of our seven vehicles inside. The rest all sat outside.”
The department has two pumpers, two ambulances, a tanker, a brush truck and a truck for the chief.
In addition to lacking enough room for equipment, the accommodations for employees were less than ideal.
“It was a bit hard to sell our fire department to potential fire fighters when they saw the 1970s mobile home that they’d get to live out of. Grown men living out of bunk beds,” Birch explains with a chuckle while shaking his head.  
In recouping the $414,000 through mediation the department now has
roughly $200,000 remaining in its capital reserve fund.
“It’s going to help us stay afloat,” Birch said. “We’ve seen the numbers on assessed property values going
down again and we’re really trying our best to avoid having to raise taxes.”
For information on
the department go to bcvfd.org/home.html.