Jan. 17, 2003

East Walpole fire station has possibilities

By Brian Burns
Staff writer

Although the budget news for next year seems to be growing dimmer by the minute, Fire Chief Edward Hartmann is still hoping that Town Meeting can find a way to approve his plan for rehabilitating the East Walpole Fire Station.

Hartmann is asking Town Meeting for $198,000 in capital budget funds that would be used to stabilize the Washington Street building, prevent further water damage and replace the station’s doors, windows, fire pole and exhaust and electrical systems.

 The funds would also be used to update the kitchen, bathroom, training room and sleeping quarters on the second floor so that firefighters could work there around the clock.

The project is a joint effort between the fire department and the town’s building maintenance department. Hartmann said that town workers and firefighters would do as much of the work as they could, though some of the more complicated tasks would have to be contracted out.

Under ideal circumstances, Hartmann would like to open the station on a full-time basis with a team of three firefighters working around the clock, he said.

The station’s garage would house the department’s second ambulance and an engine truck, making it possible for firefighters to respond to emergencies with either the ambulance or the fire engine, the chief said.

In order to make that vision a reality, it would take more manpower than the chief has now and a better secondary ambulance. 

Hartmann is planning to ask Town Meeting for the funds to hire four additional firefighters, and has another $160,000 capital budget request for a new ambulance.

If the station is able to open on a full-time basis, it should see plenty of action, the chief said. A third of the department’s calls come from East Walpole already, and with the Riverwalk Commons and Toll Brothers developments on the way, there should be an even greater demand for services in the future.

    The $1M state grant that the town is applying for to make sidewalk and roadway improvements to East Walpole should also help to revitalize the area, the chief said.

     The likelihood that Hartmann will see all of his goals realized next year is slim, considering the effect that the pending cuts in state aid are expected to have on the fiscal 2004 budget.

    But even if it’s not possible to open the station right away, doing the necessary repairs could prevent the building from deteriorating any further, the chief said.

    A tour of the station last week revealed a building that is frozen in time. Originally built as a horse station in 1911, it still has part of the wooden floor where the horses used to be kept.

    According to former Fire Chief Leonard Anderson, the back end of the second floor of the station was once used to store hay, while the front was used as a meeting room for call firefighters.

    Most of the original wooden floor was replaced with concrete in the 1950s so that the station could support fire vehicles, Anderson said.

    The station has never been manned by full-time firefighters, but the call department used it much more extensively in the past, when East Walpole was primarily an industrial center and there was a greater incidence of structure fires.

    The department still uses the station’s garage to house active rescue vehicles, but the rest of the building is faded and worn, with a century’s worth of artifacts scattered throughout.

    Piles of outdated radios gather dust on the tables and countertops. The basement still has stacks of Civil Defense supplies (bandages, stretchers, etc.) left over from the 1950s as well as crutches and stainless steel equipment from what was once a hospital here in town.

    The large common room on the second floor of the station is filled with old TVs, radios, couches, tables and chairs, presumably dating back to the 1960s and 70s.

    There is even a full-size pool table and a rack of cues, though the table will need some considerable refinishing work before it can be played on again.

    The station’s sleeping quarters are on the far left side of the second floor. The half-dozen or so beds in there are still made up from the last time they were slept in about 20 years ago, the chief said.

    While the station was never manned full time, call firefighters used to sleep over from time to time if there was a large snowstorm coming, Hartmann explained.

    A small trophy case built into the corner of the sleeping area has a silver cup that was presented to the first-prize winner of the Horse Coupling Contest held in Walpole on July 5, 1915.

    The fire pole is located across from the beds and is separated from the garage by a heavy wooden trap door. That door has to be replaced because it would take too long to open in the case of an emergency, Hartmann said.

The department now has more advanced flaps that are strong enough to block the cold air and the diesel fumes coming up from the garage, yet are pliable enough to open under the weight of a firefighter.

    Despite being in a state of considerable disrepair, the building is surprisingly roomy inside and has a pleasant feel to it.

“It’s got a lot of potential,” Hartmann said.

    Anderson, who was chief of the fire department from 1983 to 1996, called rehabilitating the station a “great idea.”