No ‘big, bad wolf’ involved
Andersonville Fire Department repairs its bay doors
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Volunteer Brian Kroth works on preparing a garage bay at Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department Station 1 for installation of a temporary wooden door on Saturday, Oct. 9. - G. Chambers Williams III
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The temporary wooden door for the center garage bay at Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department Station 1 was built in-house by volunteers and installed so a firetruck could be put back inside. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Andersonville volunteer firefighters Joe Boulger, left, and Jeremy Carden work on construction of a temporary garage door for Station 1 to serve until replacement doors arrive in several months. - G. Chambers Williams III
Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department’s Station 1 on Mountain Road is now back in business after volunteers turned out recently to make temporary repairs to garage bay doors damaged in an accident.
Fire Chief Ambrea Kroth said the department had not been able to put firetrucks into two of the three garage bays since the door frame between them was hit by the truck, preventing the two doors from being opened.
“One of our guys went to pull an engine out, and the high-side compartment door (on the truck) was open,” she said. “It caught the frame between two garage doors.”
Volunteers were able to hammer out the door frame enough to allow the right-side door to be opened and closed manually, but the damage would not allow the middle door to open at all.
Because replacement parts for the door system will take more than three months to arrive, volunteers decided to remove the middle door and build a temporary, accordion-style wooden replacement door to use until the repairs can be made.
“New garage doors are 12-14 weeks out,” Kroth said. “With cold weather coming, trucks with water tanks can’t be kept outside, so we needed to do something to allow us to get the trucks back inside the station.
“One bay door we fixed so we can open it manually, and we decided to build a barn-style door until we can get the new garage doors. That way we can still keep a truck in that bay.”
One of the firetrucks had been staying part of the time at a volunteer’s home on Oak Road in Norris. That brought a complaint to the Norris Police Department from an anonymous caller who asked that the city tell the Andersonville Fire Department to “keep its firetrucks out of Norris.”
Kroth, who lives on East Norris Road, had been keeping some equipment at her home, as well.
“I had to bring my rescue truck home,” she said.
Oddly, the anonymous complainer apparently was not aware that the Andersonville Fire Department routinely backs up the Norris Fire Department on emergency calls, as well as answering calls all the way from east of Andersonville to the Clinch River, as well as along parts of Interstate 75.
“Having one of our trucks in Norris actually decreases our response time,” Kroth said. “We go all the way down to the Clinch River.”
The firetrucks are now back in their assigned bays at Station 1, Kroth said.
The Andersonville department is the largest volunteer fire department in Anderson County, operating out of three stations over a wide area. Station 1, in “downtown” Andersonville, was built in 1977 and expanded in the early 1990s, and is the oldest of the three. It houses Rescue 720, Engine 721, Tanker 722, and Truck 726.
Station 2, in the Mountain View community, houses Engine 725 and Air 1, the air trailer. Station 3, known as the “Lake House,” is the newest, built in the Belmont community off Park Road. It houses Engine 723 and Tanker 724, and the department’s rescue/fire boat.