By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Kenton County Mayors met Saturday at Liberty Hall in Edgewood. Guest speakers were Fire Chief Corey Deye from Covington, and Assistant Fire Chief Nick Russell of Independence. They explained the project that is the new Fire Training Center.
“The old training center was at 4415 Boron, and in 1972 it was made available to the Covington Fire department for use as a fire training center,” said Russell. “The former facility had a 42 by 90 multi-purpose building with two classrooms, and a third classroom that had an overhead door. A lot of firefighters were trained at that site.”
The old training center had a smoke building which was used to stage search scenarios, a training tower where firefighters could learn high rise situations and high angle rope rescue. There was also a pumper testing pit, and a live fire training ‘T’ Prop.
The old center was the place for numerous continuing education classes for Fire, EMS, Police, Sanitation district, Water District, Census Bureau and cities, and it also hosted multiple accredited certification courses.
But the land on which the training center existed was leased, and in 2022 the site was sold and the lease bought out.
The Fire Chiefs’ Association formed a committee to search for a new location. One location stood out from the others. It is a three acre parcel at 3681 Madison Pike, in Ft Wright. They paid $70,000 for the site.
“We did mileage studies to see where the center would be for all the fire stations, and the I-75/I-275 corridor seemed to be a good location,” Russell explained. “It wasn’t good for everybody, but it was good.”
Getting the area ready to build takes a lot of patience. So far, a geotechnical boring has been done, as well as the architectural drawings of the proposed building.
“We have also met with utility companies to see if they could do some in-kind services or materials,” said Russell. “The civil engineering site plan is 90 percent completed.”
An electrical and plumbing engineering firm has been hired in order to finalize the last part of the site plan. A local contractor has promised to provide mechanical information for design.
Design build contractors gave estimates that ranged from $2,500.000 to $3,000,000 to make the site turnkey ready, but they also advised that money could be saved by contracting out the dirt and utility work separately. That work is estimated to be anywhere from $270,000 to $430,000.
All the while the association had to worry about how to fund the training center.
Of course, they had the $1,000,000 from the lease cancellation agreement, as well as fee assessments from the parties involved in the project. They are counting on in-kind services and private donors, although they have none at the moment. Grants are probably available, but they realize that most will be minimal for the upgrades and enhancements that they need.
“In the future there will be other partnerships, and we can use the center for dual credit high school students,” said Chief Deye. “We are already doing some internships with Simon Kenton. It all helps to push the fire service forward.”
Deye explained that they also have to keep an eye on their ISO score. This is the score that rates how prepared a community and area are when it comes to fires. The score of 1 to 10 indicates how well protected any community is that is located by the fire department.
The ISO scores fire departments on how they are doing based against the organization’s standards in order to determine property insurance costs. For instance, high ISO scores can increase home insurance rates in the community, or an insurer could even deny coverage in some cases.
Inspectors for the Verisk or ISO scoring have to look at firefighter training. Training centers have to be on two acres of land, and be equipped with a three story drill tower and a live fire training structure.
Deye and Russell finished their presentation and asked if there were any questions.
Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe asked when they plan to hold a grand opening, but the speakers were reluctant to give any kind of deadline as to when the project will be done.
“So we are hoping to start moving dirt sometime this summer, if the contractors allow,” said Deye.
“But the building, that’s to be determined. We need to move forward because we haven’t had a countywide training in 2 ½ years.”