The Olean Area Fire Training Center has benefited recently from repairs made possible from a $20,000 grant contained in the 2009 Cattaraugus County budget. The Salamanca Fire Training Center received a similar grant for needed improvements.

Tonight, the Cattaraugus County Legislature’s Finance Committee will decide whether another $40,000 request eliminated from the $212 million tentative budget will be restored.

The Public Safety Committee voted to recommend to the Finance Committee that the funding be restored. The Finance Committee meets at 6 o’clock tonight to vote on committees’ budget recommendations. The full Cattaraugus County Legislature votes on the budget following a public hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Last year it was decided to make investments in the two fire-training facilities rather than construct a single fire-training center in Little Valley.

Years of use and a lack of maintenance made the concrete-block Olean Fire Training Center’s tower on Gargoyle Road unusable for live burns, although city of Olean and area volunteer firefighters do other kinds of training there. It is a four-story building.

“It’s always been open to all county fire departments,” Olean Fire Chief Robert Bell said Wednesday.

It is operated by a committee made up of District 4 fire companies including the city and town of Olean, Allegany, Limestone, Hinsdale, Weston’s Mills, Knapp Creek and Portville. Will Smith of Weston’s Mills is president of the committee and Chief Bell is vice president.

“It’s a real good cooperative effort between the county, District 4 and the city to provide fire-training services,” Chief Bell said.

Part of the fire tower where live burns were staged was removed last month and new concrete blocks were used to shore up the structure.

“It was too dangerous,” Chief Bell said.

There are plans in subsequent phases to construct a new burn building. Some of the funds were used to put a new roof on the garage used for storage, and to make repairs to the classroom space at the Fire Training Center.

“We need to rehab the fire escape too,” he added.

“We’re hoping for more money next year to continue the project,” Chief Bell said.

A centralized fire-training facility in Little Valley would be more difficult for Olean city firefighters to utilize because it is so far away and because of the need to keep minimum crews in the fire halls, Chief Bell said.

“It’s out of our reach in Little Valley,” he said.

County Emergency Services Director Chris Baker said he understands why the $40,000 request to continue improvements at the Olean and Salamanca fire-training facilities was removed in the tentative budget, but the county fire service needs places to train.

Salamanca, the only site where live burns can be held, added a second story to its live-burn facility, a shipping container lined with fireproof material, and purchased a storage shed for equipment.

Mr. Baker said the Olean Area Fire Training Center has hosted fire companies from Allegany County and neighboring Pennsylvania as well, including Bradford. The Bradford City Fire Department has also trained at the Salamanca center.

Mr. Baker, who also serves as the county fire coordinator, said a centralized training facility “would be a plus, but in today’s economy” may be out of reach for the county at this time.

In the meantime, Mr. Baker said, he will continue to survey fire departments to see what their training needs are and to do the best to plan to meet those needs.

“This county is huge,” he said, explaining that while a centralized training facility would be able to offer more training opportunities, some departments could not afford to be so far away from their fire districts.

(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com)

printer friendly version

e-mail this story

Reader Comments

There are No comments posted. comments to this story.
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of bradfordera.com.

Submit a Comment

We encourage your feedback and dialog, all comments will be reviewed by our Web staff before appearing on the Web site.