1O Points To A Safer Fire Station

Excerpted and condensed from an article by Jeff Humphreys and Brett Hanson in Firehouse Magazine. The design of essential services and emergency response facilities has long been focused on optimizing first responders’ ability to serve their community. A key, but sometimes overlooked, element of a successful facility is the safety of the responders themselves, and the security facilities that house them. The following are 10 measures to consider for your facility.

1. Dedicated Secure Parking

Whether it is a career, volunteer, or combination facility, opportunities for vandalism and theft can be minimized by separating staff and agency vehicle parking from public parking and publicly accessible areas. Dedicated parking areas for staff are a start, and fenced or walled secure parking areas are even better.

2. Protection of Building Infrastructure

Facility infrastructure like emergency generators, fuel storage, transformers, and communications equipment are often outside the building enclosure. It is best to locate these items out of public view in a secure portion of the site, which might be within the secure parking area, below grade, or in their own protective enclosure.

3. Building Secure Zone

While most facilities want to project a friendly and welcoming atmosphere at the entrance, lobby, and reception desk, it is advantageous to create distinct control points with restricted access doors, solid walls and lockable transaction counters. This can be accomplished at the lobby zone, enabling the public to enter lobby and speak with someone at a reception desk without entering secure staff-only areas.

4. Community Room

Often fire facility training rooms also serve as community rooms. When developing a dual-purpose training/community room, consider having two means of entry: one off the lobby where the public can enter, and a second from the secure portion of the facility.

5. Video Monitoring and Access Control

Digital and/or electronic security measures add a higher level of security and can reduce theft and vandalism. Cameras and electronic locks can serve as an added deterrent against thieves and vandals, and, if the situation arises, provide evidence in the prosecution of suspects.

6. Special Needs

Fire stations are frequently co-located with other uses, including training grounds, props for training, and helipads. Whether training components include purpose-built training towers, burn buildings, props or an apparatus driving training course, a common theme will be adequate space for the structure, distance from property lines, and physical and visual separation from civilian activity.

7. Hardened Stations

Although fire stations are not regularly subjected to attack, it has occurred. Combined police/fire facilities may want to consider hardening the entire facility, and not just the police portions of the building. This should entail vehicle barriers, bullet resistant glazing, and bullet resistant walls.

8. Fire Protection

While it is possible to build a code compliant fire station without automatic fire sprinklers, it remains a smart and low-cost strategy for protecting a fire station. However, protection from wild fires may require additional measures, and some of strategies that NFPA recommends for residential homes should be implemented for fire stations.

9. Secure Outdoor Area

Outdoor staff areas are a common feature in modern fire facilities, and provide exposure to fresh air, sunlight, and a place to decompress. Whether these are a balcony or a patio or both, areas should be visually screened and physically separated from the public.

10. Secure Apparatus Bay Access

Overhead doors are frequently left open to aid in ventilation, cooling or access with the apparatus bay. This reduces security for the staff, equipment, and building. Implementing a means to mitigate having the doors left open will improve security. This enables staff to gain access to apparatus bay from secure portions of building without any restriction, and limits unauthorized personnel to the bay itself.

Reprinted with permission of Firehouse Magazine ©2019