A ceremonial groundbreaking was held Saturday morning, July 6, for a new fire station to be built in Talbotville, next to the site of the current one, now more than 50 years old.
Southwold Fire Chief Jeff McArthur said this was “an exciting time for Talbotville.”
He’d joined the Southwold department more than 20 years ago, and first entered the ranks at the Talbotville station.
When originally built, he continued, the existing station could house two firetrucks, and it was later expanded to accommodate three.
Since he joined, he added, the number of emergency calls answered by the station and its volunteer firefighters had more than tripled.
The current hall had limited parking and training space, and no classroom for training classes.
The new station, with three drive-through bays that could accommodate up to six emergency vehicles, would also have a large training room big enough for up to 50 firefighters, office space for four fire officers and, for the first time, a station capable of refilling air cylinders used by firefighters.
It would also have a separate room to store “bunker gear,” the protective suits worn by firefighters at emergency scenes, as well as space for the future installation of a washing machine that would decontaminate the gear after a fire, reducing the risk of carcinogens causing cancers in firefighters.
In the future, the station, which exited only onto Sunset Drive, would have a new entrance on Highway 3 as well.
Southwold Mayor Grant Jones said the new station had been a long time coming, following renovations to the Fingal-Shedden fire station.
The original decision to proceed with the Talbotville project had been made before the COVID pandemic, during which building costs “skyrocketed.”
A technical committee overseeing planning found ways to save on costs, he continued, and the current estimate of $4.3-million for construction was half of what other municipalities were paying for similar stations.
(One measure, he said after the groundbreaking, was using a conventional wooden structure, though one still strong enough to survive a natural disaster and keep operating, instead of cinder blocks. Cinder blocks were more durable but were much more expensive than lumber.)
Mayor Jones noted that 3.1 acres of land adjacent to the existing fire hall had been donated to Southwold by the McCaig family of St. Thomas.
In addition, the Green Lane Trust, established to distribute some of the money paid by Toronto to use a large dump in Southwold formerly owned by the McCaig family, had so far contributed $1.4-million toward the station, and was expected to give more in the next year.
Development charges imposed by the municipality were also being used, on the principle of “Growth paying for growth,” he said.