Harmony Fire District breaks ground on new fire station
ZELIENOPLE — About a year from now, Harmony Fire District is hoping to host a ceremony to commemorate the opening of its new $7.7 million fire station on South Main Street. Ground was broken for the station Thursday, Aug. 31.
The fire district, which serves Harmony, Zelienople, Lancaster Township and Jackson Township, needs a larger station to accommodate a recent influx of new firefighters, as well as modern decontamination equipment designed to remove carcinogens from turnout gear and firetruck exhaust, district officials said.
County commissioners, state Rep. Stephenie Scialabba, R-12th, and U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, joined fire district members and their families for the groundbreaking ceremony.
“We are part of a great team,” Kelly said, commending the municipalities for supporting the project and the fire district. He said taxpayers should be thanked because tax dollars are part of the project funding.
He also thanked Mark Gordon, the county’s chief of planning and economic development, for helping the district arrange financing for the project.
“Thank you for your servant leadership,” Gordon said to the firefighters. “It makes a difference.”
Fire district president Kevin Behun said the construction contract calls for the station to be substantially complete by Aug. 30 next year.
“One year from now, we should be sitting here having some type of ceremony,” Behun said.
After Thursday’s ceremony, Behun said all four municipalities have enacted a 3-mill fire tax to help finance the new station. The district received two grants totaling $1.3 million from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program and $1.5 million that Kelly helped obtain from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program.
P.J. Dick, the construction management firm, is overseeing subcontractors that are building the 13,500-square-foot station, Behun said. A rendering of the completed station is on the district’s website.
Work on the foundation will begin in about two weeks. The completed station will have four bays to house four large fire trucks and two smaller trucks, he said.
The new station will be built with bricks, concrete blocks and steel, and will be twice the size of the existing station that served the district well, but is now too small, he said.
The district has grown thanks to the addition of many new firefighters over the last five years, he said.
“We have a really nice group of young, robust members,” said Chief Scott Garing. “It’s really refreshing. They’re forming the same bonds we did when we were younger.”
Included will be bunks, showers, a kitchen and gym to accommodate the firefighters who staff the current station in Harmony 24 hours a day several days each week.
One of the most important features of the station will be the decontamination system, Behun said. A “gear extractor” installed in a gear room with stainless steel covered walls will remove carcinogens that build up on firefighters’ turnout gear when they fight fires, he said.
He said the decontamination system includes an air scrubber that will remove the exhaust that comes from the diesel-powered fire trucks.
The gear extractor creates negative pressure in the gear room to remove carcinogens from firefighters’ gear, he said.
“Everything we do causes cancer,” Garing said.
He said the district has 24-hour staffing three or four days a week, but the current station doesn’t have showers for the firefighters or a place for them to store changes of clothes. Having 24-hour staffing every day is a goal of the district, Garing said.
