MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Myrtle Beach Fire Rescue responded to more calls in 2016 than any time in the last twenty years.
Fire officials expect that number to continue to rise, so they continue to add new staff and 17 new recruits will soon benefit from improvements at the agency’s training grounds.
The final touches to a new building at Fire Station #3 are being put in place. Lt. Jonathan Evans says construction began last fall, which caused some delays.
“Of course things got derailed cause of the hurricane, but picked back up quickly we’re hoping to get finished in the next week or two,” said Lt. Evans.
The building will have two large bays, with enough space to hold spare rigs; and room left over for storage and a new classroom.
“This is where the recruit school will go through they’re classroom stuff and obviously outside on the training grounds,” said Lt. Evans.
The outside training grounds includes a metal burn building, constructed out of shipping containers that are welded together.
“We can change the insides around for different scenarios, just kind of mix it up. We have different burn pit pits in different spots so we can set fires in different places and have controlled burns,” said Lt. Evans.
The current burn building is about 15 years old and showing the signs of a decade and a half of being regularly set on fire; so new shipping crates have been delivered to construct a new one.
“The old one just started to, uh, fall apart and so we’re getting some new materials and just starting fresh and changing some things up so we can have better scenarios for our training,” said Lt. Evans.
Lt. Evans says the upgrades will help everyone in the community because,”not every department has their own training ground so this kind of gives us the added benefit of not having to go very far to do that training.”
The class room facility will open next month, but the new burn building is still a few months from completion.
The city budgeted $455,000 for the project, but fire chief Alvin Payne expects it to come in well under budget.