MARFA — A long-awaited project to extend the Marfa Volunteer Fire Department’s main bay to allow for more weatherized storage for fire trucks and equipment as well as other upgrades was recently completed.
“It certainly is going to improve everything,” Fire Chief Gary Mitschke said. “I think giving us that space to be able to get better organized and better take care of the equipment will make it a lot easier on the volunteers.”
The work — which involved adding a 2,500 square-foot space onto the back of the existing bay — was made possible by a $224,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant from Presidio County, $145,000 from the City of Marfa, as well as $10,000 from the fire department. Local architecture firm MUDLAB, co-owned by Elizabeth Farrel and volunteer firefighter Zeke Raney, also donated plans.
Some of the city’s contributions came from a $3.5 million tax note it took out in 2022, which is also going to street repairs. City Manager Mandy Roane and council members agreed in a council meeting this week it was money well spent to see the station improved. “It’s comfortable for the fire fighters, they have a lot more space, it’s heated, it’s protected,” Roane said. “We can keep equipment out of the elements, so it was a large cost, and we do appreciate the county helping, but it was a much-needed renovation.”
The new extension — a simple metal structure — doubles the fire station’s vehicle capacity and contains an ADA-accessible bathroom with a shower and a laundry room. The ADA-accessible bathroom will prove useful should the fire station ever need to serve as an emergency shelter or warming center, and the laundry room will allow volunteer firefighters to wash personal protective equipment at the station as opposed to taking it home.
Mitschke said the space, which has in the past played host to county voting and pet clinics, may be opened up for other community activities in the future. “It’s built by the community, and it’s for the community,” he said.
Now that the entirety of the volunteer fire department’s fleet can be stored inside its station, it will likely improve the city’s insurance services office (ISO) ratings, Mitschke said. Before, vehicles storing water were subject to freezes outdoors and subsequent complications. “So once you pull that equipment inside, then you can get points to your ISO rating,” he said.
The additional space, as well as newly installed automatic garage doors, will allow the department to line up vehicles more efficiently so they are accessible for emergencies. The MVFD has also entered into an agreement with the Presidio County Appraisal District, whose office abuts the station, to use their driveway as a fire lane so that fire trucks can drive straight into the station without having to back in from Lincoln Street.
“The whole idea is that one-way flow into the station so we’re not backing back into the station off of the street,” Mitschke said. “That’s primarily the highway there that’s kind of busy these days.”
Plans are still underway to shuffle trucks and supplies around to allow for more training and kitchen space for the 25 volunteer firefighters on staff, said Mitschke. An older part of the fire station that connects the original building to the bay may also have some leaks and drainage issues that need to be addressed, he said.
Mitschke said eventually he would also like to stage a fire truck at City Hall, south of the railroad tracks, and stage an ambulance at the fire station, north of the railroad tracks, so the city would be prepared if any train derailment or incident were to occur that would block the flow of emergency responders.
“It’s kind of a simple logistics staging of equipment so that if anything happened along the railroad, we’d be able to respond with equipment on either side,” Mitschke said.
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