Two Fire Halls and EMS Officially Open

The top photo shows Fire Chief Brent Marshall, Mayor Rick Bonnette and Councillor Moya Johnson, Chair of our Fire Services and Emergency Planning Committee, chopping the official fire hose to open the new Fire Department Headquarters Station at the corner of Main Street South and 10th Sideroad in Georgetown. The official ceremonies took place on Friday Sept. 10th.

Following the official chopping, the firefighters posed for photos in front of their beloved 1942 Fire truck. This beautiful truck is the pride and joy of the firefighters and it is housed in the heritage room visible from 10th sideroad. It is expected that many school children will tour this facility and learn about our firefighting tradition in this room.

The station is also the Emergency Operations Centre should an emergency ever be declared in Halton Hills. All of the necessary communications lines have been put in to facilitate emergency communications and coordination.

Th bottom picture was taken at the official ceremony later the same day over at the new Maple Avenue Fire Hall and Emergency Medical Services building (Ambulance). This was a partnership project with Halton Region, the level of government responsible for ambulance services. Regional Chair Gary Carr can be seen in this photo along with Chief Marshall, Mayor Bonnette and Councillor Johnson.

Both of these buildings were obviously designed by the same architects and are certainly attractive. However, it is important to note that they are very well thought out buildings designed to conserve both energy and water. For example water is collected on the roof and stored in a cistern for use in washing the trucks and fire fighting. The tower is designed for air drying the hoses and is also used to practice rappelling. Both facilities are heated and cooled using geo thermal technology.

It has not been easy financing these two buildings. Normally we would fund the new fire hall from development charges. This is a charge put on every new home and is rolled into the purchase price. However, you may have noticed that housing development has been very very slow because of a lack of water in Georgetown. It was decided by Council that we had to move ahead to ensure proper fire protection for the town. This is why there is a special fire levy of 1.2% on the municipal tax bill to pay for these services.

The cost of the two firehalls is $9.2 million, funded through the Town ($6.4 million) Ontario ministry of Infrastructure Renewal ($1.9 million) and Halton region ($1.1 million)