A long time coming; IVFD in new home

    After years of searching for a larger site, and even a failed bond issue, the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department is happy in its new home.
    Officers with the department said they couldn’t have found a better spot than the one they moved into last June at 315 Broadway.
    Now, the public has the chance to see the new fire hall for themselves.
    On Friday, from 5 to 8 p.m., the IVFD is hosting an open house with free pancakes and sausage. The hall will be open and trucks on display for the public to view.
    “It’s a chance to see the building, trucks and all the room in there, and to see all the good work everyone did to get it ready,” said Fire Chief Doug Mitchell.
    The chief and two assistant chiefs had a lot to say about the building’s positives.
    Mitchell said it’s great to now have enough room for everything. Due to lack of space at the old site, the IVFD’s dive team trailer and equipment had to be stored off site.
    “In my eyes, this is also safer, too, in respect to the trucks,” Mitchell said. “You don’t have trucks ‘running’ over you here,” he said.
    First Asst. Chief Brad Wheeler said the room they have now is great.
    “And, there is room to expand if we need to later on. It’s all on one level and handicap accessible,” Wheeler added.
    Kelsey Weiss, 2nd Asst. Chief, pointed to the better flow of the trucks now.
    The trucks are no longer triple-stacked or even double-stacked, bumper-to-bumper now as they were in the old fire hall.
    “You got used to it being tight there, but we don’t have to worry about that now,” Weiss said.
    The new site allows better organization of supplies, too, such as their foam and cleaning products.
    Previous to the city’s purchase, the building housed Harchelroad Motors’ ag parts division. Earlier, it also had been an area for the dealership’s corvette division.
    While the building was set up well for the fire department’s needs, there was a lot of remodeling work done, Mitchell noted, before and since moving last June. Much of the work was funded with the IVFD’s Helen Fanning Memorial funds, Mitchell said.
    Five new doors were installed for the trucks to enter and exit, and all new concrete was laid for the approach off Broadway. Two offices were remodeled for a kitchen, and the sprinkler system was updated throughout.
    At the former site, the lockers were built in, so new lockers were purchased to store the firefighters’ gear.
    Mitchell said they still have a few items to complete, one of which is some additional signage to face Broadway.
    As far as any city officials and IVFD officers know, the department’s former location three blocks north at 637 Broadway was the only other IVFD home.
    Mitchell said they are very thankful to the council and Mayor Dwight Coleman for making the building purchase possible.
The new location contains 14,000 square feet of space. The two buildings to the west  have another 720 square feet each.
One of the buildings to the west serves as their health and wellness room. The other is for storage.
Mitchell sees the new location as a win-win. Even though their previous efforts didn’t result in a new hall, this one fits the bill.
A new facility might have been nice, but the fire chief noted they were able to save a lot of money by moving to this site.
On Friday, people are invited to come anytime during the three-hour open house. Mitchell asks that people not park on the approach in front of the fire hall east doors.