NEWS

ICFD adjusting to loss of training facility

Andy Davis
aldavis@press-citizen.com
Iowa City firefighters Bill Schmooke, left, and Larry White pull out a 170-pound practice body from an empty house on Bloomington Street during training on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015.

The Iowa City Fire Department is readjusting after losing the training facility it has used for the last 13 years.

The department was forced to vacate the three-story training facility at 1001 S. Clinton St. in December as plans for a new Riverfront Crossings Park began to take shape. The creation of the park is a result of development and riverfront beautification in the city's Riverfront Crossings District.

"It's an adjustment, and depending on what the training is, it isn't anything we can't overcome," said Iowa City Fire Chief John Grier. "It's definitely causing us to think outside the box a little more."

Since 2002, the training facility had provided the department with centralized classrooms, storage space for training props, outdoor space for live fire training exercises, a donated train car used for hazardous material and confined space training and a three-story structure used for high rise rescue drills.

The department has distributed training materials between the four stations around the city, Grier said, and has also secured a short-term storage facility. Grier said the department will have to be more creative about finding training areas and holding classes.

"There are some new and innovative ways to find a way to continue what we were doing at the old facility," Grier said. "We have a video conference system so we can hold classes across all four stations at once, and we've been working with the city to practice some live burns in vacated buildings."

For example, training Officer Bob Henry led a training exercise in the basement of a vacant property at 918 E. Bloomington St. on Wednesday.

Firefighter John Crane, speaking on behalf of the Iowa City Association of Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 610 union, wrote a letter to the city earlier this month asking the city to consider funding construction of another centrally-located facility.

"The training camp was a centralized location where all of our training props were stored and where a classroom was available," Crane said. "Now, all our materials are scattered across the city."

Jeff Davidson, the city's economic development administrator, said that while the fire department will lose the facility in the short-term, the benefits may be long-term.

"The old facility was flood prone as we saw in 2008, and the flooding was disruptive to the fire department," Davidson said. "This will get them out of the floodplain, and at the same time potentially increase the floodplain capacity with all the land there that will open up with the park. Our goal is to try to find another permanent, centrally-located facility that's out of the floodplain."

Crane said he has not yet been made aware of any proposals for the city to construct a new facility for the department.

City Finance Director Dennis Bockenstedt said $700,000 is set aside in the proposed FY2016 budget to build a shared storage facility for the police and fire departments at the city's public works campus near South Gilbert Street.

Grier said there have also been conversations, but no formal plans, to use Coralville's regional fire training facilities near Hughes Street. Crane said he thinks using a training facility outside of Iowa City would result in delayed response times to emergencies.

"With advanced planning and scheduling, that wouldn't be an issue for us," Grier said. "We'd just have to pack our supplies and bring them to the facility with us, and if there were an emergency, we'd leave directly from training to respond."

Reach Andy Davis at 319-887-5404 or at aldavis@press-citizen.com, and follow him on Twitter as @BylineAndyDavis.