The footers are poured, concrete block is rising, and steel framing is giving shape to our brand new facility. It may be hard to imagine now, but the new Harmony Station will be home to the Ingomar Volunteer Fire Company this coming spring!
Although we will be without a permanent building in "downtown" Ingomar during construction, we have taken great care to ensure that we will still be able to provide fast, professional fire and rescue response to the residents of McCandless throughout the entire project. We are still on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we will still have fire apparatus responding to our community's calls for service from both the downtown Ingomar area and from the North Ingomar station, just like normal.
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Why Build a New Station?
Since the construction of the Main Station over fifty years ago, the very nature of the services we provide has changed:
- We respond to a more broad base of emergencies than we did decades ago, and we must carry more equipment on our apparatus to help us resolve the diverse emergencies we face.
- Our firefighters must train more rigorously to learn and perfect the skills and techniques they will be required to perform in emergency situations.
- We are required to keep detailed, organized records of virtually every aspect of what we do.
- We must keep our basic operating costs (heat, electric, water, building maintenance) to a minimum to ensure that we have the funds to provide to the community the best fire and rescue services possible.
As this evolution occured over the years, Ingomar VFC began to realize an increasing number of deficiencies with the Main Station. For instance:
- The overall size of fire apparatus has grown to accommodate the increased amount of equipment that can be carried. Therefore, each time we replaced a truck, we were faced with an increasingly tighter fit within the garage bay, and we had more and more difficulty pulling out of the garage and making an immediate swing onto Harmony Drive.
- The Main Station lacked classroom space and areas to engage in practical training within the station; traning sessions conducted indoors were rudimentary.
- The office and meeting space available in the Main Station was no longer adequate to meet the administrative needs of the fire company.
- The costs for utilities and basic upkeep on the Main Station were steadily increasing year after year, and more extensive rennovations were inevitable.
So the Harmony Station will resolve these shortcomings. The new station will:
- Provide safe ingress of fire apparatus entering Harmony Drive from the fire station, as well as safe egress of fire apparatus as they back from Harmony Drive into the station when they return to quarters.
- Expand training and classroom space to keep our firefighters at the top of their game, so they have the skills and knowledge to help you, your family, and your friends whenever needed.
- Widen and deepen apparatus bays to accomodate the ever-increasing size of fire apparatus well into the future.
- Include more energy-efficient building materials to help ensure a more "green" future for Ingomar VFC.
We'll be posting more information about the construction project on this site and on our Facebook page as work continues over the fall and winter!
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