This past week, FIRE CHIEF hosted its third Station Style conference in Phoenix. And I’m pleased to say that it was a success.
Phoenix Fire Department Executive Asst. Chief Steve Kreis welcomed the chiefs, officers, commissioners and architects. “Probably some of the most expensive things we do in the fire service, we entrust to you,” he said. “You deal with codes and NFPA standards and those requirements are clearly a challenge.”
The Phoenix Fire Department places a priority on firefighter comfort. “We live where we work and it needs to be a work place and serve that particular purpose,” Kreis said. “Yet it needs to be comfortable to live in also.”
Deputy Chief Ken C. Leake and Project Manager Jim Zwerg followed Kreis with an “Overview of Station Design the Phoenix Way.” Leake stressed the importance of community involvement in the design of a fire station. Station 57, which conference attendees toured on Sunday afternoon, is surrounded by a equestrian trail. “During the design of Station 57, the community wanted a railing in front of the station,” said Leake. Later, when Leake stopped by the new station, he saw a horse tied to the railing while the owner was inside the fire station.
Community rooms in each fire station are available for public use by calling a central scheduling office at Phoenix Fire Department. “We walked in one time and found sewing machines set up in the room,” Leake said. “The local quilting club was using the room.”
Mary McGrath, AIA, Beverly Prior Architects, presented “Operations-Based Design in a Sustainable World,” which focused on the importance of learning to work with your architects. “The most successful station we find is based on the architects’ understanding of what you do,” she said. And McGrath isn’t the only architect who believe that. Later during a break, I overheard an architect ask a chief if he could ride-along for a shift.
The Station Style Conference was focused specifically on designing and building fire and emergency service facilities. But one program that may have seemed tangential turned out to be the most talked about program of the conference. Deputy Chief Ed Nied of the Tucson (Ariz.) Fire Department and Dr. Kelly A. Reynolds of the University of Arizona College of Public Health reported the results of their research study in “Design Strategies for Preventing Infectious Disease Transmission.”
Reynolds explained that they expected to find MRSA in wet, moist areas like showers and gyms, but found nothing. “But dry areas, bacteria survived for day to longer periods of time,” she said. They strongly recommended no carpeting in fire stations, particularly in sleeping areas, and no cloth recliners or couches in the day rooms. Nied also recommended “safe” areas of the fire station where turnout gear and boots would be prohibited. “If a firefighter kneels down in a victim’s house and returns to the station, you don’t know what they could be bringing back to the fire house,” Nied said. They also recommended personnel leave station wear in the station. Changing their clothes before and after work can protect their families from possible exposure.
Furniture manufacturer Bulldogg Tuff Comfort introduced the small, stuffed Bulldogg tuff pupp. Sales raised funds for the National Fallen FireFighters Foundation, and the last of the pups were purchased by Byron Epp, Door Engineering, to meet their goal of $3,000.
Here are a few other tips offered during the 2008 Station Style Conference:
- “Build training into your fire station design,” said Mark Shoemaker, AIA, Cole + Russell Architects. Use mezzanines for rappelling exercises and vertical concrete pipes for confined-space rescues.
- “If you talk the talk, then walk the walk and have a fire sprinkler system in your station,”said Alden Spencer, Tyco Fire & Building Products.
- “The cost of green or LEED your station can be insignificant,” said Lynn Reda, AIA, LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects.
- “It’s almost always less expensive to go out than up,” said Ken Newell, AIA, Stewart Cooper Newell. “American Disability Acts requires elevators to second floors, and that adds between $125 to $225,000.”
- “Make sure the flooring you select is UV-resistant,” said Larry Enyart, FAIA, LEA Architects, during “In Flooring Factors for Stations.”
And the chiefs were listening. By Tuesday morning, one chief already had called his department and told them not to put the carpeting in the dorm area.
Further details will be featured in an upcoming FIRE CHIEF.
