Low Profile Station Shields Two Bays
Photos by David Bry, Media News Services
Stretching a building budget and meeting tough zoning ordinances were obstacles that faced Rural/Metro Fire Department, Inc., planners when they built their Station No. 17 in Paradise Valley, Ariz.
The station has a below-grade-level, two-bay, truck room and looks more like a house than a fire station. Since Rural/Metro is a private corporation, it had to conform to the strict zoning ordinances in the elite bedroom community of Paradise Valley.
Doesn’t look like a station
“We have built an attractive building that does not look like a fire station and is probably one of the few around with truck bays built below grade,” said Louis Witzeman, Rural/Metro president.
The facility cost $78,000 and Witzeman estimates he achieved considerable savings over stations built by other Phoenix-area fire departments. Twenty-four trees surround the station, as required by zoning stipulations, to give the building a low profile and not damage the residential quality of the area. The construction met the industrial building specifications in the Uniform Building Code.
The station houses one 750-gpm engine, but can accommodate two pieces of apparatus and six men. Plans call for quartering a reserve piece in the station within a year. The 30 X 30-foot truck room is separated from the 1500-squarefoot living area and connected by a covered patio walkway.
Mutual aid provided
Rural/Metro services individual subscribers to its fire service in Paradise Valley, which has no town fire department. The station is 400 feet from the Phoenix city limits. Since more than a dozen Phoenix homes and a large shopping center are within a two-minute run from the station, Phoenix pays Rural to provide mutual aid coverage from its new station.
The station, at the north-central section of the township, has cut response times in this area in half, according to Witzeman.
