Coming Together
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
OLPE — The Olpe and District No. 1 Fire Department got a facelift and a huge boost in space with the completion of a new addition to its fire station in Olpe.
The addition adds 5,000 square feet to the station and houses the fire department’s two pumpers, a tanker, two grass rigs and an ambulance. The station has a classroom, dispatch room, chief’s office, kitchen, apparatus area and a large upstairs storage area.
An open house for the fire station will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the new station in Olpe. There will be a grand opening ceremony at 1 p.m. Following the ceremony, Olpe firemen will give away hot dogs, chips, pop and balloons.
There will be fire extinguishers and smoke detectors given away as door prizes.
The fire department is a volunteer department with 26 volunteers, said Chief Bob Miller. Construction started on the new addition in August 2009. The addition was funded by W.S. and E.C. Jones Trust ($49,553), Emil Babinger Trust ($6,500) and the City of Olpe and Fire District No. 1 ($211,336).
Miller said the project couldn’t be completed without funding, the Olpe City Council, the rural fire board, fire district volunteers and friends and family.
Olpe’s fire station has come a long way since the 1950s when its first fire station housed one truck and was located in the present-day Olpe City Hall. In 1966, Lyon County Fire District No. 1 merged with Olpe City Fire Department to house trucks and equipment in one building. The rural district bought a new pumper, the city bought a new pumper and Olpe built a new fire station.
“Nobody in 1966 ever could have foreseen Olpe needing more than three bays for equipment,” Miller said. “Over time, equipment was added. A tanker was acquired in 1970 and it was housed outside.”
A second grass truck also was added, Miller said.
“Back in those days volunteer departments didn’t have much funding, and a lot of work was done by the firemen themselves,” Miller said. “Herman Klumpe, former chief, built the bed units that were on the first 1966 pumpers and grass trucks. The last homemade unit went out of service in 2008 as the rural replaced that truck for a turnkey-ready grass truck.”
In 1971, some of the fireman did their own fundraising. According to a Gazette article, the firemen roofed houses and had a firemen’s ball to raise enough money to buy the department’s first Scott air packs.
“The tradition still holds true today, as the department still holds annual fundraisers to raise equipment money,” Miller said. “Around 1970, the firemen voted to not be compensated for every call. Instead, they created an equipment account that is still being used today for purchasing equipment and supplies.”
The department raised enough last year to purchase a defibrillator and held a hog raffle, which helped to buy the appliances for the new station, Miller said.
Soon, it was evident that the department was going to need space, Miller said.
“By 2005, the department knew they were up against a wall,” Miller said. “Knowing that within the next 10 years, both the city and rural pumpers would need to be replaced as they will be 30-35 years old. We established a truck purchase plan to replace pumpers with 10-year-old pumpers from other departments for a third of the cost of new ones.”
There were some problems with the new trucks — space. The new trucks were taller, longer and wider.
“We soon found out that the existing building doors and height wouldn’t accommodate such trucks,” Miller said. “In order to house a $75-$100,000 10-year-old unit the plan of an addition started in action. The other alternative was a custom pumper built small enough to fit in the old station, but the price of one of those would cost twice as much as what we had in the whole new addition.”
The new addition was the best option for the department and taxpayers, Miller said. The building now can house existing equipment and a pumper that is scheduled to be replaced in 2011, with another replacement coming in 2016.
The fire department wasn’t the only entity in Olpe that needed more space. The city maintenance shop next door to the fire department needed extra space as well. The city shop was located in the former Greenwood Garage building which had been in a fire in the early 1970s.
“The building wasn’t structurally sound,” Miller said.
The city authorized the demolition of the old shop to add onto the fire station. The second fire station is now the city shop. Demolition of the city shop was in August 2009. The exterior was done around the first of the year.
“Since then we’ve been finishing up on the interior,” Miller said. “It’s nice to have guys on the department that know and work in areas that have saved on construction costs.”
The Olpe firemen laid the tiles themselves with help of neighbors or family members of firemen.
“It isn’t the new station or the trucks that make the department,” Miller said. “It is every one of my 26 volunteers that make it work. If you don’t have good guys that know how to work, have common sense and willing to train you don’t have much of a department.”
With the addition completed, the possibilities of use for the building are endless, Miller said.
“The American Legion uses our classroom once a month and the coffee club meets every morning,” Miller said.