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Cumberland fire hall gets much-needed crack repair

CUMBERLAND, B.C- The village fire hall in Cumberland is getting fixed up this week.

Back in January, the village council approved a report that included plans for the current Cumberland fire hall, which was built back in the 1960s.

According to fire chief Mike Williamson, the current building wouldn’t be able to stand in the event of an earthquake, and didn’t meet current requirements from WorkSafe BC.

A crack in the east door framework expedited work on the building. Workers had removed stucco and wood paneling around the header for the door, and found the crack, which had gradually been growing wider.

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Construction began on the crack on Monday, as workers began taking a header apart.

Williamson estimated that the crack will take 10 days to repair.

“There are no footings down below, they’ve got to build a big pyramid block down underneath that centre footing to support the T-bar that they’re going to put in there,” he explained.

Williamson said $70,000 was budgeted for the new doors and work on the hall.

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“At first we thought that we should need a new fire hall (and) that we don’t need new doors,” Williamson said.

“The whole two bays are so bad that they actually need (to be) replaced. It needed to be done anyway (because) it’s just a safety hazard. We would have had no choice, even if we weren’t getting a new truck, we would have had to fix it.”

The building requires an 11-foot high door to allow access for the department’s new, 10-foot-five inch tall fire truck when it arrives in the late spring or early summer of 2019.

“So, two brand new doors,” Williamson said. “The original door is 10 feet, we’re going to have 11 feet.”

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Williamson said there is an “inch of the header sitting on the wall so it’s pretty important that we got it fixed. No matter what, we had to fix it. Any little bump or shake, and that little header would have just dropped to the floor.”

An open house for the fire department’s new hall project will be held on December 5th.

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