More Sarnia fire station improvements considered

With Sarnia’s new Colborne Road fire station nearly complete, the city is considering upgrading another in 2025.

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“Very tight quarters,” Chief Bryan Van Gaver said about Station 5 near Telfer and Blackwell roads.

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The station was constructed for one to two full-time firefighters, for the Town of Clearwater before it and Sarnia amalgamated in 1991, he said.

Since amalgamation, the station has housed four firefighters, he said.

“In one room it’s got a locker room, one toilet, one urinal and one shower,” Van Gaver said. “And with a diverse workforce, it just doesn’t work there.”

A septic system that needs to be emptied twice a year has also been a drain on city finances, he said.

Design work in 2024 — there’s $25,000 for that in the city’s draft capital budget — would look at adding new bathrooms, showers, personal spaces, a private office area for captains, a physical fitness area, how to deal with the septic system, and environmental upgrades including an oil separator, Van Gaver said.

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There’s also $1.5 million penciled in for station renovations in 2025.

Prioritizing Station 5 is a different vision than the one set out in the city’s three-year-old fire station location and condition assessment report.

That report by Emergency Management and Training recommended — along with the new $6.7 million station nearing completion on Colborne Road — building a new Station 2 near Vidal Street South and Clifford Street, building a sixth station that could act as a new headquarters in the area of ​​London Line and Airport Road, and moving Station 5 into Bright’s Grove, near Lakeshore and Waterworks roads.

Some of those moves would negatively impact some response times while improving others, and the report that’s a component of the city’s fire services master plan didn’t factor in a shared services agreement with Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Van Gaver said.

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Station 2 is currently just north of the First Nation.

“At the time, we really stressed, it’s only recommendations,” he said about the Emergency Management and Training report.

“Everything we do, it’s up to the fire chief to bring his recommendations to council … so they can make informed decisions,” Van Gaver said.

“Just because it says that in the plan, it doesn’t mean that that’s the way it’s going to go.”

So where fire station improvements could be targeted in the future and whether building a sixth station will happen isn’t clear, he said.

“That will really be dependent on the future of the city as a whole,” he said.

“Population, density, as things get built up … we’ll have to respond accordingly.”

Sarnia’s official plan includes a 45 percent intensification target and assumes population growth to 87,000 people, by about 12,000, by 2046.

More information is expected soon about construction progress on Station 3, after delays in 2022, Van Gaver said, noting the city’s primary interest in the Emergency Management and Training report, at the time, was to gauge and validate the plans for that project.

“We are coming to a move-in date rather quickly,” he said.

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