Marion to build firefighter training facility

Don DeVault, who volunteered with the Marion Fire Department for 50 years, poses with an antique fire engine. DeVault and his wife, Ruth, donated $900,000 from their estate in 2014. The money will help pay for a new public safety training structure in Marion. (Submitted photo)

MARION — Don DeVault was a volunteer firefighter for 50years with the Marion Fire Department.

After he and his wife,Ruth,died, in 2004 and 2013, respectively, the couple left $900,000 to the Marion Firefighters Association for use in a capital project.

A decade later, the city has decided to use the DeVault gift to build a public safety training center for the city’s emergency services staff.

“We wanted to use the DeVault contribution on something that would be a long-standing building in recognition of Don and Ruth,” Deputy Fire Chief Jason Hansen said.

The training facility will have two structures:

A four-story training tower for mid-rise and elevated rescues, victim searches, and horizontal and vertical ventilation.
A two-story Class A burn structure to simulate real-life fires.

The Marion City Council in June approved the grading package and foundation of the center, which will be built next to the city’s public services facility at 195 35th St.

The council on Thursday approved the tower’s construction contract with Janke & Sons Construction.

This rendering shows the training tower to be built for the Marion Fire Department at 195 35th St. The tower and a burn structure was funded in part by a $900,000 bequest from Don and Ruth DeVault. (City of Marion)

The project’s estimated cost is $2.8 million. The DeVaults’ bequest was invested in 2014 and has increased to $1.3 million, Marion Fire Chief Tom Fagan said. The city of Marion will allocate the remaining $1.5 million.

The training tower should be completed by next spring, with the burn structure completed by fall 2025, he said.

Fagan said the vision is that the training center will be a shared asset among regional police and fire departments and emergency services.

“When we have those big working incidents, our partners — police and EMS — are working side by side with us to manage these situations, and so it just makes sense that we should be training together as well,” he said.

Fagan said the department has been looking to add a training center since the DeVaults’ gift in 2014.

However, building Marion's Fire Station No. 1, 100 Irish Dr., came first. And then the department had to find the right location for the training center.

“The land and making sure the zoning was right was really the final piece,” Fagan said. “You just can't put a facility like this in a neighborhood.”

Continuous training

Kale McBurney, training chief for the Marion Fire Department, said the department’s training now takes place at the city’s two other fire stations on Katz Drive and Eighth Avenue.

He said the new center's burn structure will allow for continuous training.

Kale McBurney, Marion Fire training chief

“We're at the mercy of many different people now because we're not allowed to burn anything within the city,” McBurney said. “With this facility, we will be able to facilitate training, and space will be more readily available for our crews.”

Whenever the department wanted to do live fire training, it would have to travel to a neighboring fire department or find someone outside the city who was demolishing a house and wanted it burned, McBurney said.

In order to keep the training tower as clean as possible, the burning will be done solely at the burn structure so as not to expose those using the training tower to the carcinogens found in soot, Fagan said.

"We'll have plumbed theatrical smoke and some other training props (in the tower)," he said.

McBurney said the city’s firefighters were given a say in the specifications of the new training center.

“We wanted to re-imagine it,” he said, “to not just be for what we need today, but what may be needed in the future for Marion,” he said.

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