fire station

County Staff, Residents Quarrel Over Potential Locations for New Fire Station 8

By Heather Mongilio
1/8

The last planned community meeting on the topic of Fire Station 8’s potential relocation turned heated quickly as residents strongly objected to the county staff’s recommendation to move the fire station to what’s now a salt dome at 26th Street N. and Old Dominion Drive.

The county plans to replace the aging fire station with a larger, “state of the art facility,” which requires the station to be relocated to a larger piece of land or for the current building to be torn down and rebuilt. For the most part, residents at the meetings have objected to any relocation of the fire station, citing the station’s history and importance to the surrounding community, among other issues.

“I have been at these meetings and at every one of them, one or two or five people have suggested either a newer cooperative station or a new station for emergency medical services in the northern part of the county and leaving Fire Station 8 renovated and modernized where it is,” one neighbor said. “And yet immediately that suggestion is dismissed and does not appear on any of these studies that you present. It doesn’t look like you have taken back suggestions in any form for your consideration.”

County staff are planning to recommend the salt dome at 26th Street N. and Old Dominion Drive as the location of the new Fire Station 8 to the county manager. The county manager will then draft a recommendation that will be made to the County Board.

The site at Old Dominion Drive and 26th Street N. is only one of the possible 19 locations that fit the parameters set by the County Board. Under these guidelines, the new location had to improve response times in North Arlington, have at least an acre and a half of land, be county owned or have a willing seller, have access to an arterial road and not exist in a resource protected area. The total cost of acquiring the land and building the new four-bay station also had to be $12 million or less, according to Deputy County Manger Carol Mitten.

Throughout the process, the largest concern has been improving response times to homes in North Arlington, said Deputy County Manager James Schwartz, who previously served as the fire chief.

If the fire station is relocated a minute north to 26th Street N. and Old Dominion Drive, 3,000 more homes will be able to have a four to six minute response time from the fire department, police and emergency medical services, he said.

In most of the county, emergency services are able to get to people within four to six minutes, except in the far northern most part of Arlington, where times can be eight or 10 minutes, he said.

“A person that’s in cardiac arrest must receive basic life support, that’s CPR, in four to six minutes or there’s irreversible brain damage,” he said.

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Long History of Hall’s Hill Fire Station in Jeopardy, Residents Say

By Heather Mongilio
1/4

(Updated at 5:15 p.m.) The Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department was no stranger to challenges.

The first All-African American volunteer fire department in Arlington faced segregation and limited equipment for almost 40 years, according to a history of Fire Station 8 by Arlington Public Library.

The chronological history of the station was published in the middle of a debate between local residents and county government over its proposal to relocate the station farther north to Old Dominion Drive, by Marymount University.

“My neighbors look at that fire station as the heart, the hub, the star on the tree, whatever you want to say,” community member Jim Derrig said at a July 30 meeting. “And what we’re trying to say is you can’t replace the heart with a pacemaker or a bandaid. You have to replace a heart with a heart.”

The county says relocation is necessary for the Arlington County Fire Department to meet their response time goal of four to six minutes countywide.

“We are focused on life saving. That is our mission,” former Arlington County Fire Chief Jim Schwartz said in a county-produced video.

While this would not be the first time the fire station moved, — the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department was previously housed in smaller fire stations on Lee Highway and N. Culpepper Street in the 1930s — relocation would mean that it would no longer be in the Hall’s Hill community.

Hall’s Hill is a historically African-American community, once the home of freed slaves and separated from the rest of the county by a fence. In 1918, the members of the community formed the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department with one 60-gallon chemical tank that six men would have to pull along muddy and unpaved roads, according to the library.

When Arlington County was formally established two years later, the county excluded the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department from the Arlington County Fireman’s Association and did not give the department monthly pay for professional firefighters.

The VFD, which played a central part in the community, slowly built up its fleet of fire trucks and built a station first on Lee Highway in 1927 and then 2209 N. Culpepper Street in 1934. The 1934 fire house also had a basement for a community center.

After the fire department was integrated, it moved to its current home at 4845 Lee Highway and officially opened on June 17, 1963 with 17 paid firefighters. The Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department owned the deed to one of the pieces of land that went into the new station, while the county owned the others.

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Ballston as seen from the top floor of an office building

Fire Station Relocation May Go to Voters — A controversial plan to relocate Fire Station 8 from Lee Highway and the Hall’s Hill neighborhood to a locale further north, in order to improve response times, could be put to voters. Opponents may push for a stand-alone bond issue for construction of the new fire station, which would put it on the ballot. The idea was floated during a well-attended community meeting on the fire station relocation plan last night. [InsideNova]

North vs. South Swimming Pool Divide? — Swimming has always been a significant part of life in Arlington, but current pool options are tilted toward north Arlington, says Our Man in Arlington columnist Charlie Clark. Building the stalled Long Bridge Park aquatics center could help alleviate the divide, Clark reasons. [Falls Church News-Press]

Arlington Family Kicked off Flight — An Arlington family was kicked off a JetBlue flight from Boston to Baltimore on Monday, reportedly because of a squirming two year old and FAA regulations. [WUSA 9]

DCA Screeners Find Two Guns in Two Days — Screeners at Reagan National Airport found two guns in carry-on baggage over the course of two days this week. The two men who had the guns in their bags are now facing weapons charges. [WJLA]

I-395 Exit to Close Temporarily — The exit from northbound I-395 to Washington Blvd will close overnight Sunday and Monday for paving and lane striping, VDOT says. [Patch]

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

"Pops for Pets" concert at Lubber Run Amphitheater (Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman)

Whole Foods Eying Ballston Development? — Whole Foods is reportedly considering leasing a 43,000 square foot retail space in a new 12-story, 431-unit apartment building that’s set to replace the Rosenthal Mazda dealership at the corner of N. Glebe Road and Wilson Blvd in Ballston. The organic grocer is said to be “in advanced talks” to fill the space and is “very bullish” on Ballston in general. [Bisnow]

Car Drives Off I-66, Into Woods — A car drove off the eastbound lanes of I-66 and into the woods yesterday afternoon. Nobody was hurt in the accident, which happened between the Monroe Street bridge and Spout Run. [Twitter]

More Opposition to Fire Station Move — Residents of the Old Dominion community aren’t the only ones opposed to a proposal to move Fire Station 8 to the neighborhood. Some residents of the Hall’s Hill/High View Park community, where the fire station is located, say that it is a “hub of the neighborhood” and should stay put. Fire Station 8 has some historic distinction, as the first African-American-run firehouse south of the Mason-Dixon Line. [Falls Church News-Press]

Metro Proposes Blue Line Boost — The good news: Metro is proposing changes to its rush hour service that would have trains on the overcrowded Blue Line run every eight minutes instead of every 12 minutes. The bad news: the proposal would increase the headway between trains on the Orange, Silver, Green and Yellow Lines, from six minutes to eight minutes. [Greater Greater Washington, WAMU]

Arlington Startup Raises $21 Million — Ballston-based Distil Networks, a cybersecurity startup founded in 2011, has raised $21 million in a “Series B” venture round. The company is planning to add 100 new employees over the next 12 months. It has offices in Arlington, San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C., and has plans to open another office somewhere in Northern Virginia. [DC Inno, Tech Crunch]

Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman

Fire Station 8 Relocation to Be Discussed at Community Meetings

By Mariah Joyce

FS08_facadeTomorrow night (June 25) Arlington will hold the first of four planned meetings to discuss the relocation of Fire Station 8.

Last May, the county proposed a plan to move the fire station from Lee Highway to a county-owned green space near Marymount University on Old Dominion Drive. The Old Dominion Civic Association said it was “blind-sided” by the plan, and raised an outcry that prompted the county to reevaluate.

The Arlington County Fire Department wants to relocate Fire Station 8 further north in order to achieve their goal of four to six minute response times throughout the county. Arlington County studies conducted in 2000 and 2012 both indicated that while response times in most of the county met this goal, the northern part of the county was underserved and would benefit from having a fire station closer by.

At the meeting tomorrow night, residents will hear an overview of the issue from county staff, as well as the criteria and constraints for selecting a new fire station location. Residents will have the opportunity to give feedback.

“[The] process to select a site for the relocated FS8 will include dialogue with community stakeholders, including civic associations within the service area and other members of the public wishing to participate,” according to the county website. “The process will include a discussion of County needs; siting consideration and criteria; and evaluation of alternate sites within the service area.”

On Thursday, July 30, county staff plan to recap previous meeting results and provide another opportunity for community members to weigh in on alternative sites for the fire station. At this meeting, the county staff also plan to outline the process they will use to review the list of potential sites.

At the final meeting, currently scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 9, county staff will formulate a recommendation to be presented to the County Board.

The meeting tomorrow will be at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church (2609 N Glebe Rd) from 7-9 p.m. There will be a meeting at St. Mary’s at the same time on July 9 recapping the first for any who were unable to attend.

Photo via Arlington County Fire Department

Fairlington Fire Captain Retires After 33 Years

By Ethan Rothstein

Capt. II Curtis Stilwell on his last day of work at Station 7 in Shirlington

A quiet life of fostering potbellied pigs, llamas and alpacas on a farm in Prince William County is what lies ahead for Curtis Stilwell. What lies behind Captain II Stilwell is 33 years of service to the Arlington County Fire Department, including the last three as station commander for Fire Station 7 in Fairlington.

Stilwell retired last month, working his last 24-hour shift on Halloween.

Station 7 is known as “The Little House” around the department, according to Fire Chief Jim Schwartz; it’s the smallest house and has just four staffers at a time on a single engine. It’s a small building that opens up right into the captain’s office, where there are plaques on the wall and trophies in a case for serving on Sept. 11, 2001, and for the station winning the 2006 Metro Fire Department Bus Rodeo.

When ARLnow.com visited Stilwell on his last day, he was relaxing at his desk, listening to the radio and reminiscing about old times with Capt. John Snyder, himself a 29-year veteran of the department. Stilwell said he wasn’t one of the people who grew up dreaming of being a firefighter. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he was going to school with money from the GI Bill and working at Sears, but wanted something more stable.

“I just needed a job with regular income and insurance,” he said. After 33 years, though, “I wouldn’t change a second or day of it. You see people at their worst and they thank you for helping them. It’s very humbling.”

Humbled is how Schwartz sounds when he talks about Stilwell’s devotion to charity work in his off time. He’s worked for years as a counselor at the Mid-Atlantic Burn Camp, a gathering place for burn victims to go meet other victims and “not feel so alone.” Stilwell has also been the treasurer of the region’s Aluminum Cans for Burned Children program for more than 20 years.

Capt. II Curtis Stilwell, in his office on his last day of work at Station 7 in ShirlingtonStilwell’s stepdaughter is a burn victim, and his eyes start to water when he talks about his work with burn victims and their struggles. It’s far more emotional and personal for him than anything he discusses of being on the job for three decades, including working during Sept. 11.

“When you’re a burn survivor and have a significant injury, people know it,” he said. “A lot of these victims are kids and they just want to feel like they belong, like there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Stilwell’s wife, Renée, works in fire education for the Fairfax County Fire Department. Stilwell was taking care of his mother-in-law on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 after working a shift, when he saw the news and called his wife, telling her he had to go to work. Renée soon joined him.

It would be two weeks until either of them returned home.

“I remember driving on I-66 and it was deserted, like a science fiction movie where everyone disappeared,” he said. “After we got there, they divided everyone into groups doing different things. We were assigned to go in with the FBI and assist with finding victims in the rubble. Not to be too graphic, but we were basically looking for body parts.”

Stilwell’s career started at Fire Station 3 in Cherrydale in 1981. He worked for years in the Fire Prevention Office, and that’s where he left his biggest mark on the county, Schwartz said, setting guidance in not only how the community could prevent fires, but how firefighters protected themselves.

“Early in my career, [Stilwell] was a firefighter with experience that helped to guide many of us who were new to the job,” Schwartz said. “Over time, as we progressed through the ranks, he became one of the guys I most relied on as one of my senior leaders.” (more…)

New Fire Equipment, Three Firefighters Approved for Falls Church Fire Station

By Ethan Rothstein

Engine 106 in front of the Falls Church Fire Station, also now as Arlington Station 6 (photo via FCVFD)(Updated at 12:35 p.m.) The Arlington County Board has agreed to help fund a new fire engine, ambulance, ladder truck and three additional firefighters at the Falls Church Fire Station (6950 N. Little Falls Road in Arlington).

The station is located in Arlington but the land and building are owned by the City of Falls Church. According to the county staff report, half of the station’s coverage area is in Falls Church, while the other half is in Arlington. The partnership contract between the two jurisdictions had not been updated since it was passed in 1989; the new agreement the Board approved on Saturday would replace the former contract.

The Arlington County Fire Department staffs and operates the station alongside the Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department.

“The new Fire and Emergency Medical Services Agreement between Arlington County and the City of Falls Church is a much-needed update to an agreement that dates back to 1989,” County Manager Barbara Donnellan said in an email. “This new agreement better serves both communities, by more clearly defining  operations and cost-sharing, and taking into account how service delivery has changed since 1989.”

The new agreement calls for three more full-time equivalent positions, for which the county and city will split expenditures. Despite the new purchases and new positions, county staff doesn’t anticipate any additional “net tax support.”

“While the County has additional expenses under the new agreement, such as Fall Church Fire Station maintenance,” the staff report states, “these additional expenses will be offset by additional reimbursements from the City.”

The old agreement, staff writes, did not clearly define how costs for maintenance and replacement of outdated equipment would be split between the two jurisdictions. In the first year of the new agreement, Falls Church has agreed to pay for capital improvements to the station to “bring the facility to an acceptable operating baseline.” The county has agreed to be responsible for maintenance and the city will fund all capital improvements going forward.

The city will pay the county $150,000 a year for capital investments, which the county will manage, and $738,000 for the initial improvements, which include replacing windows, overhead doors, and HVAC design.

Photo via Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department

Fire Chief Gives Recommendations for New Station

By ARLnow.com
1/7

Arlington Fire Chief Jim Schwartz on Tuesday presented the County Board with recommendations from the county’s latest fire station location study, and the results are not without controversy.

A consultant has recommended that Arlington move Fire Station 8 further north, defying neighborhood protestations; close the “neighborhood treasure” Fire Station 7; and build a new fire station on the eastern portion of Columbia Pike.

Tuesday was the first time the Board had received a detailed public rundown of results in the TriData report from December 2012. The report assessed Arlington’s need for emergency services and how needs have changed. The last assessment of Arlington’s fire response needs had been nearly 13 years prior.

“Communities on a regular basis need to assess where their fire stations are,” said Schwartz. “Communities change a great deal, this one certainly has in the last couple of decades.”

Schwartz explained that 60 percent of Arlington County Fire Department’s activity comes from emergency medical calls, 30 percent from fire or hazmat calls and 10 percent are non-emergency public service calls, such as stuck elevators. The sections of Arlington County producing the most calls consistently coincide with the most densely populated areas. Fire Station No. 5, near Crystal City, is currently the busiest in Arlington.

ACFD aims to respond to all fire calls within four minutes of being dispatched, and respond to medical calls within eight minutes. However, those goals are not being met in the northern portion of the county, Schwartz noted. He said there is no fire station located in the northernmost part of the county, which causes response times there to be longer than in areas with better station coverage.

“We have not been physically located where we can get to the northernmost portion of the county in four minutes. So that has been a long term goal of the department, to move a facility into an area that physically enables us to get there as quickly as possible,” said Schwartz.

The need to offer better coverage in the northern part of the county prompted a recommendation in the TriData report to move Station No. 8 from its position on Lee Highway in the Hall’s Hill/Highview neighborhood to county-owned land at Old Dominion Drive and 26th Street N., near Marymount University.

That proposal rankled members of the Old Dominion Civic Association, who say the county did not reach out and allow residents to give feedback. Several residents of that neighborhood believe the land on which the new station would be built should instead be preserved as park space.

“I will acknowledge the report recommended as better sites from a response perspective, Williamsburg Blvd at Glebe Road, and Rock Spring Road at Glebe Road. Both areas where there is a lot of private property that I do not envision us taking. And so we said, what’s the next best alternative, and they focused back on the recommendation of 26th and Old Dominion,” said Schwartz.

Several County Board members echoed the community concern over a lack of explanation for building a fire station at the proposed site.

“We do need more information,” said Board member Walter Tejada. “I guess the concern people feel, the reason is they have been surprised or blindsided by it. I’m hoping those questions will be answered so we can pass them on to our residents who want to know how did this come about.”

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Crime Report: Drunk Man Crashes Car Into Fire Station

By Ethan Rothstein

A Falls Church man crashed his car into Arlington’s Fire Station No. 9 earlier this week.

Yancy Carrera, 33, drove into the corner of the fire house at 4:05 a.m. Sunday morning, according to police. He was arrested charged with DUI and felony destruction of property.

A fire department official said no one was injured in the crash, which caused only cosmetic damage to the building. So far, there is no estimate on the cost of the repairs.

From this week’s Arlington County crime report:

FELONY DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, 09/22/13, 1900 block of S. Walter Reed Drive.  At 4:05 am, an intoxicated subject drove his vehicle into the corner of Fire Station #9. Yancy Carrera, 35, of Falls Church, VA, was arrested and charged with DUI and felony destruction of property. He was held with no bond.

The rest of the crime report, after the jump. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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Earthquake Repairs Planned for Fire Station No. 2

By Katie Pyzyk

Repairs are planned for Fire Station No. 2 (4805 Wilson Blvd) in the Bluemont neighborhood, some of them stemming from last year’s earthquake. At its meeting on Saturday, July 21, the County Board will vote on awarding the work contract to the Avon Corporation.

The contract will cover stabilization of the entire building’s foundation, in addition to repairing cracks in the bunk rooms. Some of the bunk rooms in the 15-year-old building already had cracks due to shifting of loose foundation soil under the building. But the earthquake last August 23 caused damage to spread to another two rooms, and to the entrance of the truck bay. In addition to repairing the existing damage, the work is designed to prevent future wall cracking.

Some of the work includes demolishing and replacing walls, repairing cracks and slab jacking to raise and stabilize the foundation. New structural steel columns, metal panels and windows will be installed. There will also be some utility relocation and the roof drain will be moved.

County staff concluded that although the shifting and cracking of the building does not pose an immediate safety threat, the continuous movement will eventually cause the structure to collapse.

Staff recommends the County Board approves the contract, worth $247,000, on Saturday.

Obama Unveils Jobs Plan During Arlington Visit

By Katie Pyzyk

President Obama chose Arlington’s Fire Station No. 5 (1750 S. Hayes St) as the place to deliver a speech about the creation of a new Veterans Jobs Corps.

Around 11:30 a.m. the President arrived at the fire station via motorcade and took the stage to announce his new $1 billion initiative, which he highlighted during the State of the Union address last month. The program particularly targets veterans who have served since 9/11 — a group whose unemployment rate is currently hovering around 13 percent.

“Our veterans are some of the most highly trained, highly educated, highly skilled workers that we’ve got,” said the President. “These are Americans that every business should be competing to attract.”

Under the initiative, 20,000 veterans will be put to work over the next five years on a Veterans Job Corps conservation program, which will “restore our great outdoors by providing visitor programs, restoring habitat, protecting cultural resources, eradicating invasive species, and operating facilities,” according to the White House. The corps will also “repair and rehabilitate trails, roads, levees, recreation facilities and other assets.”

In addition to the Veterans Job Corps, the president announced that he will seek $5 billion in funding to boost local police and firefighter hiring. Preference for those jobs would be given to post-9/11 veterans.

“Let’s get more cops on the beat. Let’s gets more rangers in the parks. Let’s get more firefighters on call,” Obama said today. “And, in the process, we’re going to put more veterans back to work. It’s good for our communities, it’s good for our economy, and it’s good for our country.”

The president explained that in addition to contributing to the overall good of communities, there will be specific financial benefits for taking part in the initiative.

“Today, we’re announcing that communities who make it a priority to recruit veterans will be among the first in line when it comes to getting help from the federal government,” the president said.

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