By Jay Ermis
The Huntsville Fire Department may be getting another new fire station.
The City Council voted Tuesday night to authorize city manager Bill Baine to apply for and accept, if awarded, a Department of Homeland Security Fire Station grant.
The resolution approved by the council calls for the application to be for no more than $2.1 million of grant funds to construct a fire station on state Highway 75 North.
The new station would replace the fire station currently located at the City Service Center.
Fire Chief Tom Grisham said the department’s Fire Station No. 3 is located in a three-bay backend station on the west side of the City Service Center, but does not have living quarters or bathroom facilities.
Volunteer firefighters respond to fires in the service area by going to the service center and getting firefighting equipmen first.
“It’s a storage shed for fire trucks,” Grisham said. “It’s heated. It was added on to back end of the service cener back in 1979 or 1980.”
Grisham said the City Council approved the purchase of a doublewide modular home at that time which housed firefighters and Huntsville-Walker County emergency medical service personnel.
“We had the bunker program out there,” he said. “We had the EMS crew out there. Unfortunately, we got into a mold issue with the mobile home and ultimately we had to vacate it. We sold the mobile home in a public auction. Now we still only have the three bays out there.”
The service center houses a tanker-pumper truck — a county-city fire truck; a 1981 model engine with a 1,500-gallon per minute tank; and a 1973 model reserve engine.
Grisham’s goal is to build a fire station where the HFD can return to its bunker firefighter program.
“The bunker firefighters is the best opportunity to have firefighters in the station at night and weekends,” Grisham told the City Council during Tuesday night’s meeting. “During the day, we’re up and running and have trucks rolling where we can get out of the station pretty quick.
“It’s the night times we are worried about. It’s a cost-effective program that we have. We use Sam Houston State University students who enter the fire department.
“Once they get the basic firefighter course, then we are able to give them the opportunity to move into the fire station and they actually live in the fire stations.”
A new three-bay drive-through facility would house two firefighters and two EMS personnel and “it would be what I would call a substation.”
Grisham said Fire Station No. 3 serves from near 11th Street to Forest Hill, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Wynne Unit, Walker County Jail administrative building, north out to the county line and west of the Huntsville city limit.
“We’re contracted with the county for I-45 extraction calls,” he said. “Highway 30 West to the county line is covered by the fire department in addition to Crabbs Prairie.
“There is a big area in the county not covered and we hope that station will help that situation some.”
Grisham said the $2.1 million grant is available for construction of fire stations only, specifically fire stations that need rebuilding, ones that have mold in them and those in bad condition would fall into that category.
“We don’t know if the fire station would be built on the original site of the doublewide, which was located on city property down from Fire Station No. 3,” he said, “or if it would be built where the current fire station is now or if it will be built in that general area on the airport road. It hasn’t been decided yet.”
Grisham said the grant application “gives us an opportunity with no cash match to fix that project. I didn’t see in the future where we would be able to fund to build a fire station out there. This gives us an opportunity to take a shot at it with hopes of getting the grant.”
The grant must be submitted before the July 15 deadline.
The grant does not provide for purchase of property to build a new station or sewer or utility hookups.
“We can definitely find somewhere in that area city-owned property where we can build that station,” he said.
The city is also in the process of constructing Fire Station No. 4 off state Highway 30 East.
Grisham said “we’re ready for contractors to start the bidding process and start interviewing contractors by the end of the month. We’re hoping by the first of August we break ground.”
He said the station will house EMS offices and ambulance, his office and the bunker program with two firefighters.
He said a new engine truck for the fire station was approved in the bond election by Huntsville voters and the truck is on order.
