Fire District Mounts Building Project

Suffering from old age and poor location, several Ventura County fire stations and administration buildings are slated to receive much-needed modernization this decade.

Construction is set to begin this month on the first of three buildings at the Ventura County Fire Protection District headquarters. Additionally, 11 fire stations would ultimately be rebuilt or relocated. The capital improvements are projected to cost an estimated $45 million, though much of the financing is yet to be obtained.

The building program would be the largest ever for the county Fire Department, Fire Chief Bob Roper said Wednesday.

“These buildings were built in the 1940s and ‘50s,” Roper said. “[Since then] the population has increased in the county and certain roads have changed.”

The county Board of Supervisors approved hiring a consultant last month to manage the projects and suggested the district seek funds from various state and federal grants in addition to its own budget.

Money for five of the 14 projects has been secured, said Nick A. Rollins, the Thousand Oaks project manager hired by the district.

Construction of a new $3.4-million fire district headquarters at Camarillo Airport is scheduled to begin later this month and be completed by May, with state and local funds covering the entire cost. The 10,000-square-foot, two-story building would include renovations to the existing structure.

A new “burn building” is needed at the headquarters, but no money has been found for the $4-million training facility that simulates fires.

Also at headquarters, a $3.2-million communication center would be housed in a two-story, 10,000-square-foot building and include a dispatch center and offices, and sleeping, shower and eating areas. Funds have not been located, but the district wants to complete the burn building and communications center by late 2004.

The bulk of improvements would modernize 11 fire stations that have structural deficiencies, such as engine rooms that are too small for today’s larger fire engines, a lack of separate facilities for male and female firefighters and locations in the middle of flood plains. Construction for the new stations would also improve seismic stability and energy conservation, officials said.

“The fire stations are just old,” county Supervisor John Flynn said.

The stations to be improved are in Moorpark, Ojai, Oxnard, Susana Knolls, Simi Valley, Meiners Oaks, Piru, Fillmore, Lake Sherwood, Thousand Oaks and in southern Ventura County west of Malibu.

Moorpark’s outdated station will be the first one rebuilt. A $2.4-million facility, near High and Magnolia streets, is expected to be completed by May 2004.

The station was originally built to house the fire chief and his family in one building and the station in the other. Today the fire engines are separated from the main station.

“In the winter, we basically have to run outside in the rain or whatever to get to the engine room,” said Fire Capt. Rick Bell.

Improvements at the other fire stations include taking the fire station near Malibu out of a leased building to a permanent site, moving the Ojai station from a site where dirt and slag underground produce potentially harmful gases and moving the Fillmore station from a flood plain where the Sespe Creek has overflowed into the building several times.