Close quarters: Lack of space, aging facility create challenges for Bemidji Fire Station

BEMIDJI — When you think of the living quarters of a fire station, you probably don't picture a small room lined with cubical walls and with curtains hanging as makeshift doorways. But this is exactly what it's like for Bemidji's firefighters.

Each of these improvised "bedrooms" is complete with nightstands, dressers and personal belongings. But even with so much crammed into such a small space, it’s clear that one thing is missing — privacy.

“This is where they sleep,” Bemidji Fire Chief Justin Sherwood explained. “For our live-in staff, this is their home. They’re here all the time.”

The room’s size and lack of privacy aren’t the only concerns facing Bemidji’s firefighters. Beyond just the station’s dormitory, the entire building faces structural deterioration, outdated hardware and an at times overwhelming lack of space.

With the ongoing discussions by the Bemidji City Council on the potential future for both the fire station and Bemidji City Hall, the conditions of the building and their ramifications are important to consider.

The state of the building, alongside the high demands of the job, has made it difficult to recruit live-in staff and career firefighters who struggle with the building’s inadequacies.

“There was a time when we were getting people in here for a week. They’d move in here and leave right away because of how busy we are, the lack of privacy and the facility overall,” Sherwood shared.

And the Bemidji Fire Department has only been getting busier over the years, even as staffing has remained the same.

“We’re running roughly a thousand calls a year. Since 2019 we’ve had a 25% increase in our calls,” Sherwood explained.

Of those calls, Bemidji responds to more fires than a typical fire department. The percentage of fire-related calls in Minnesota averages at 5.3%, and nationwide, 3.9%. But in Bemidji, 8% of the department's calls are for fires.

The high stress of the job makes the need for privacy and quiet at the fire station all the more important.

And for the station’s one female firefighter, Alexis Joyce, the lack of privacy also creates additional challenges.

“If I decide to work out or go take a shower, I have no privacy with that. I have to announce to every person in the building that I’m going to go take a shower,” Joyce detailed. “It’s like I have to ask for permission. It’s not that, but that’s what it feels like sometimes.”

The lack of space has also created unique solutions to ongoing problems, including turning a corner of the station’s training room into an office for the station’s deputy chief, Mike Yavarow.

“We added the deputy chief two years ago, (but) we don’t have the office space so he works on card tables in the corner,” Sherwood explained, pointing out a small section of the conference room cordoned off with a cubicle wall.

The lack of privacy in every part of the station can be tiring and makes it difficult to do basic things, such as having a private conversation or taking a moment alone for some peace and quiet.

“There’s no privacy anywhere,” Joyce said. “That’s fine if you’re in an 8 to 4 job and you’re not there all day, but we’re here for 24 hours.”

Along with problems related to privacy, the design of the fire station also creates additional safety concerns for an already dangerous job.

“What you want to do in a fire station, because of all the carcinogens, diesel fuel and secondary exposure to stuff, you want a major separation and decontamination area,” Sherwood explained. “We don’t have that.”

Instead, when firefighters return from a call they get out of the trucks and have a small station with a washer, extractor and sink just a few feet away in the same garage. And the space where they store their gear is right next to their residential area.

“Cancer is one of the top killers of firefighters,” Sherwood shared. “So when you talk about decon-areas, we want to have a separate room where there are extractors and washers, where firefighters can take their gear off. This stuff wouldn’t be by our living spaces.”

This garage, next to the contaminated gear and diesel trucks, also houses the department’s fitness equipment because there was no other space to put it.

“Do the best you can with what you’ve got, right?” Sherwood joked. “We have to fit it somewhere.”

The lack of a proper decontamination area isn’t the only safety concern caused by the station’s design, since the garage also forces firefighters to back their trucks into the bay each time they return from a call.

“Our bays are not drive-thru bays, they’re back-in bays. That makes problems not only for safety but for damage to equipment,” Sherwood said. “We have to have an operator and a spotter. You can see (the trucks have) a heck of a blind spot.”

And because the garage doors were designed 50 years ago with smaller fire trucks in mind, the Bemidji Fire Department has had to lower its rear-mount ladder truck just so that it could fit in the door.

“We paid $700,000 and something for this, and paid additional money to lower the truck,” Sherwood shared. “It had to be adjusted so it could fit through our doors. There’s very little clearance there.”

Most of the station’s problems aren’t easy or cheap fixes either. A lot of the building’s hardware is outdated enough that it’s impossible to find parts, and fixing or replacing them would require taking out walls or tearing up the foundation.

The structure itself has serious concerns with water mitigation, affecting the exterior walls and roof.

“The way this thing is built, there’s a block interior/exterior wall, and there’s a brick facade on the outside. There’s supposed to be an air gap between it with drainage planes so water can get out, but there’s not,” said Matt Ridlon, the city’s facilities manager and building inspector.

Because of the lack of a gap, moisture stays in the walls and infiltrates the bricks where it freezes and causes the bricks to crack and fall off. Sherwood estimated that last year alone around $20,000 was spent just replacing bricks.

“It’s only a matter of time before (water) gets into the block of the wall, and then you have a big problem,” Ridlon said pointing to cracks in the bricks, “and there is some evidence of that.”

As for interior problems, the station has asbestos tiles, some of which are beginning to crack and peel up, and significant issues with air circulation and temperature regulation.

“(This building) was finished in 1971, and the building code was enacted in 1972, so there weren’t any rules on how things were built,” Ridlon said, “and in my opinion, this building wasn’t built correctly.”

Now with the city council considering a joint project to rebuild city hall and the fire station, there are questions on whether replacing failing equipment is worth the investment.

“We’re trying to decide what to do. Every one of these (garage) doors needs to be replaced, at about $8,000 each,” Sherwood said. “So what do we do? Spend $40,000 on new doors, or whip them along and hope we’re supported and get a new fire house?”

When the city council first started examining a project for city hall, prompted by flooding in the spring of 2022, the fire station wasn’t included. It wasn’t until the inspector happened to stop by the fire department that it was added to the proposal.

“(The city) brought someone in to inspect (city hall) and the guy that was inspecting that building happened to pop over here and it was like 'Whoa, this building also needs a lot of attention,'” Sherwood recalled.

Even with the possibility of a new fire station on the table, there isn’t a guarantee that it will be built. It all depends on the direction that the city council takes.

“I’m trying to stay neutral. When we talk about the costs of even just (a new) fire station, $11 million or whatever it is, that’s a lot of money,” Sherwood said. “I also know everyone is struggling financially, not just individually, but local government units. I get it.”

In case a new fire station isn’t approved, Sherwood is already thinking about how to make things work with the limited space and funds available.

“As a chief of this department, I’m not in favor of continuing to have our staff, who are already stretched, continue to live in these conditions,” he explained. “I won’t do it, so we’ll have to find the money. Does that mean I have to pull from our operational budget? Training? Equipment?”

There are some changes that are non-negotiable or that can’t be put off much longer, like getting a proper office for Yavarow, updating the HVAC system and replacing the asbestos flooring.

Without a new station, Ridlon is of the opinion that the only way for the station to continue to operate would be to continually sink money into repairs.

“(We’d have to) constantly put money in it,” Ridlon said. “Things are happening that need to be addressed sooner or later.”

Ultimately, even though he’s excited about what a new fire station could mean, Sherwood wants to know what the community supports.

“If our community put $11 million up to build us a better facility, planning for 50 years down the road, think about all the other services we can provide our community because of that investment. I get really excited about it,” he admitted. “But what does our community want us to do? That’s what I want to know.”