State Bond Commission Approves $250K to Design New Regional Fire Training School in Fairfield

The State Bond Commission has released $250,000 to create design plans that will be used to replace the Fairfield Regional Fire Training School and four other fire training schools in the state.

"It's a tremendous threshold to cross," Assistant Fire Chief Christopher Tracy, training director for the Fairfield Fire Department, said Monday afternoon, adding that efforts to replace the regional fire training school on One Rod Highway date back to the late Fire Capt. Joseph Elias, the department's first training officer, from 1966 to 1980, and the man for whom the fire training school was dedicated and named.

Tracy said the training school, built in the 1950s as a civil defense structure, consists of two small classrooms and a portable classroom that the town decided was no longer suitable for use at town schools. "We're sort of a gypsy caravan...of portable structures," he said.

Alan Hawkins, chairman of the State Firefighters Association's Education Committee, said the Fairfield Regional Fire Training School, which is used by firefighters in a dozen area towns and cities, had been cheaply-made and had substandard heating and air conditioning systems and a leaking roof.

In addition to the two classrooms and annex, the training school also has outdoor facilities that include a flashover simulator, a two-story burn tower, a four-story training tower, a trench simulator, a confined space rescue simulator, a forcible entry simulator, flat roof and peak roof simulators, a vehicle fire and extrication area, a hazardous materials area, Rapid Intervention Team collapse simulator and an area for propane fires. "Everything's going to be replaced down there except for the four-story tower," Hawkins said.

Hawkins said the $250,000 would fund a design template that would be used to build new regional fire training schools in Fairfield, Torrington-Burrville, Beacon Falls, Wolcott and Middlesex. He said the new fire training school in Fairfield would feature a new classroom building, new burn building, in which firefighters simulate battling a structure fire, and what he termed fire training props. He said the cost of the new school in Fairfield would be roughly $6 million; those funds, while appropriated, have yet to be released by the State Bond Commission, Hawkins said.

Fairfield Fire Chief Richard Felner said Tracy worked hard to bring a new regional fire training school to Fairfield and deserves a lot of credit for his efforts. "He worked very hard on this and put in a lot of time, and he was successful. It proves hard work pays off," Felner said.

State legislators representing Fairfield also applauded the State Bond Commission for releasing money to design Fairfield's new regional fire training school.

"The Fairfield Regional Fire Training School has served as an important training center for firefighters throughout Fairfield County," state Sen. John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said in a statement. "The facility is now outdated and can no longer adequately serve the needs of the dedicated men and women who protect our communities.  Having worked for years on this project, I am delighted to see that a new state-of-the-art facility will finally be built."

State Rep. Tom Drew, D-Fairfield, said in a statement that state legislators had anticipated funding for the project for "quite some time, and I am thrilled the time has come."

"There has been an urgent need for a new state-of-the-art fire training facility, and I am pleased to see we are now moving forward," Drew said in the statement.

State Reps. Kim Fawcett, D-Fairfield, and Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, also applauded the release of funds by the State Bond Commission.

Hawkins said a total of $26 million had been authorized to replace or create eight regional fire training schools in Connecticut and that the State Bond Commission had released $6.9 million so far.