Ground has been broken on a new Fire Training Classroom building in Danbury.  The 6,500 square foot facility on Plumtrees Road is costing about $1 million.  It will be on the same property as the Department's burn tower, which was rebuilt in 1992.  The tower has had some upgrades and renovations since that time. 

Classroom training is currently run out of a single-wide trailer.  It can only accommodate 15 firefighters.  Most of the state certification courses and the classes held by the Department require classroom time.

The new building will have two classrooms, a computer room, conference room and offices for the Training Division in the new building.  Infrastructure for training activities around the building will also be installed.  While no fire engines will be housed at the site, there will be two bays.  One will be for a fire engine, one for a tanker truck.  The bays will face the burn tower so firefighters can practice getting their gear on and out the door headed toward an emergency situation.

12 volunteer fire companies in Danbury also train at this site.

Hawley Construction is building the exterior of the facility.  A request for proposals is going out for the interior work.  Bids for Phase 2 of the project will be accepted through September 10th.

(Chief TJ Wiedl, Mayor Boughton, Drill Master Steve Rogers, former Chief Geoff Herald, Deputy Chief Mark Omasta)

Mayor Mark Boughton says this is not only about better training and providing better public safety services, but also about being aregional leader in training.  While he hopes they never get called, Boughton says when the Fire Department does get called to an incident, they'll be prepared.

Chief TJ Wiedl says this is something that they've been looking forward to for a long time.  He notes that this is a City wide effort.  He says this will be state of the art classrooms by Spring of next year.