Lavonia FireFighters to Ask City for Lavonia Training Center

The Lavonia City Council is expected to hear tonight from Lavonia Fire Department Chief Scott O’Barr.

At their work session last week, City Mayor Ralph Owens said O’Barr plans to ask the council about setting up a fire training center.

O’Barr’s idea is to use property behind the Lavonia Cultural Center where an old quonset hut now stands.

“We’re talking about taking that old building down,” Owens said. “It looks bad, has holes in it and we just store pipes in there. So what we’re looking to do is take that building down and put this fire training center there.”

Owens said the fire department also wants to dig a well to do testing of the pumps on their fire trucks.

Councilman Eddie Floyd recently retired from the Lavonia Fire Department.  Floyd said right now, fire trucks have to be taken to Hartwell for the pump test – a process that is time consuming and inconvenient.

“They take a whole day,” he said. “Whoever is doing it is missing a whole day of pay.  They have to drive to Hartwell to do it. It’s a daylong thing.  They’re missing their work and they’re not getting paid to do it.”

The pump well is similar to large septic tank that would be in the ground at the new facility site.  Owens noted having a fire training center in town would also lower the ISO rating for Lavonia and its homeowners.

The training center would consist of three cargo containers stacked one on top of the other.  Those boxes would be fitted inside so firefighters could simulate house fires for training.

But Councilman Harold Harbin questioned whether the City really needs a fire training facility.

“I guess my question is does Hartwell have one of these? Does Toccoa have one of these? Does Canon have one of these? Does Canon have one o these? Or is it just one of those things that we say we need? How much does it cost if we pay them for a full day of being trained? ” Harbin asked.

Councilman Floyd said it would save the City money to have training in the town.

“It isn’t so much as them getting their certification, it’s the continuing education and having a training center here that we can maintain the level of firefighters that we have at the moment, which is pretty awesome,” Floyd pointed out.

Councilman Floyd noted the EPA and EPD  also no longer allows local fire departments to burn down old houses as they did in the past for training.

City Manager Gary Fesperman noted the approximate cost for the training complex would be about $48,000 and would be paid for from SPLOST funds.

Tonight’s meeting begins at 5:30p at Lavonia City Hall.