Built 54 years ago, the Coos Bay fire station has one shower room for all firefighters, men and women, who must take turns using the showers or bathrooms. -World photo by Lou Sennick

COOS BAY — There is a reason why firefighters must be physically fit. Responding to medical calls, fires and other emergencies requires strength and agility. Those firefighters in the Coos Bay Fire Department have another reason to remain trim: space.

Their main station’s garage is so tight that there can be as little as 18 inches separating one vehicle from another. When dressed in full turn-out gear, a foot and a half worth of clearance doesn’t accommodate much additional girth.

The city of Coos Bay has offered several reasons why it is asking voters to pass a $6.9 million bond levy to build a new fire hall.

The city’s main station at the corner of Fourth Street and Anderson Avenue is old. It’s cramped, in need of repairs and designed to accommodate far fewer firefighters than currently housed there.

Yet perhaps the most pressing issue can best be illustrated with a basketball.

On a recent afternoon, Battalion Chief Mark Anderson took some visitors into the station’s ground-floor kitchen. Standing at the northeast corner of the room, he set a faded orange ball on the cement floor. It immediately began rolling west, picking up speed before softly thudding into a sofa on the opposite wall.

The station was built on pilings hammered into filled land in 1954, said Fire Chief Stan Gibson. Over the years, the building has settled somewhat, resulting in tilted floors and second-floor door frames that are slightly askew.

While good for amusing visitors with the ball trick, the shifting is an indication of how poorly the station would be able to withstand a serious earthquake.

“(The hall) would be destroyed,” said John Whitty, treasurer of the Fire Station for You committee that is meeting with local groups to encourage voters to support the measure. “There’s absolutely no question about it.”

About 70 percent of the fire department’s resources are stored at the Fourth Street station, Anderson said that would make responding to the large volume of medical and other emergency calls following an earthquake difficult.

“We would have to unbury our own people before we could help others,” he said.

If the bond measure passes, the city would look to build a new fire station on more stable ground. Staff are in land acquisition negotiations with the First Presbyterian Church of Coos Bay, located near the intersection of Fourth Street and Elrod Avenue. Efforts also are being made to purchase an adjacent area owned by Nelson’s Bay Area Mortuary. The next meeting with the church is scheduled after the election, Gibson said.

If the city can’t purchase those properties, other locations will be examined. This location is preferred because it has relatively shallow bedrock and is centrally located.

A new facility would have about 30 percent more floor space, making it easier to maneuver vehicles into the station’s five apparatus bays. It also would be built to current building, energy and public accessibility codes, Anderson said.

Building designs also include between 19 and 34 parking spaces, which could conceivably improve the response time for fire calls, Gibson said.

At the current location, there are two off-street parking spaces. Sometimes, volunteers responding to a general alarm have to park two blocks away and run to the station. This does not necessarily slow down the initial response, but it can delay the arrival of additional equipment.

“If someone is tied up on Seventh Street, we are waiting before we can respond,” said Gibson. “We are not meeting the needs of our own folks.”

Looking to address these problems is not new. Gibson said relocation studies were taking place in 1987 and discussions have been raised at least three or four times since.

Mayor Jeff McKeown said he thought it was a good time to propose a bond measure because a sewer bond levy came off the city’s tax rolls in September of last year. The fire station bond would increase property taxes by 74 cents per $1,000 of assessed value starting in November. This amount is what residents were paying on average the last five years of the old bond, said Coos Bay Finance Director Janell Howard.

If the bond should fail, Gibson said the city would have to seismically retrofit the Fourth Street station, as well as make other repairs. He does not know how much such upgrades would cost.

“If we stay there we would have to spend a lot to repair it, and that’s not money well spent,” said McKeown.

Gibson noted such changes still wouldn’t address all the needs of a modern department. When it was built, it was designed for a staff of one chief and two firefighters working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“Our needs have really changed from the mid-’50s,” he said. “Then, there was no need for dorms or kitchen facilities, other than to make a pot of coffee.”

There also weren’t any female firefighters. Accommodations have been made for these additional needs, but a new facility would greatly improve conditions, Gibson said.

Funding would not be used to upgrade the department’s other two facilities, in Eastside and Empire, though Gibson said residents in those areas also would benefit from a new station. The other facilities are built on soil that is more stable and don’t have the space problems found on Fourth Street.

“We could have addressed the other stations, but then it becomes too large an issue,” Anderson said. “If you prioritize, this is the one that needs the attention.”

Safety is certainly the priority with the new building, McKeown said, though a new fire hall also would serve as a civic symbol.

“We need to do something that our community is proud of, in my opinion,” he said.