After almost a decade, the Valley Fire Chief’s Regional Training School has received state funds to purchase land for a new training center.
The training school has operated without a physical location for the past 10 years, since its former site on O’Sullivan’s Island was designated a brownfield due to contamination there. The property was cleaned and is now open space.
This week, the state bonding commission released $950,000 to purchase 11.2 acres in the Beacon Falls industrial park.
It’s just one step toward a completed facility to train firefighters in nine area towns — Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton and Woodbridge.
“We’re finally taking steps, steps in a long journey,” said Charles Stankye Jr., a Derby resident who is member of the Connecticut State Firefighters Association education committee. “We feel we’re on our way.”
The committee is overseeing renovation projects at five regional training facilities, and new construction projects at three, Stankye said.
The regional training school still needs about $9 million to build the facility, Sankye said, money that is expected to also come from the state.
“The committee believes it’s going to be rolling along now,” Stankye said. “But we will have a new administration in and only time will tell.”
The Regional Training Schools
Each region has a training school to keep area firefighters up to date on skills and information about fighting fires.
In addition to classroom activities, the schools offer hands on training with live burns.
Because the Valley has no physical school, the classroom training takes place at rotating departments, and the hands on training has had to be performed at the training facilities in Fairfield, Torrington or Wolcott, Stankye said.
“The burden is the fact that in the Valley especially, we’re all volunteers. Everybody has a day time job,” Stankye said. “To come give up an evening to train for firefighting, it’s a hassle for some people and then you had a possible hour travel each way if you have to go elsewhere.”
The regional schools also keep various equipment — ladders, rope, hoses — and a fire engine to help with training.
Without a facility, that equipment is spread throughout the region, at whichever departments have extra room in their firehouses.
“We’ve been anticipating funding for this project for quite some time, and I am thrilled the time has come,” State Rep. Theresa Conroy, who represents Ansonia, Beacon Falls and Seymour, said in a written statement. “There has been an urgent need of a fire training facility to make it easier for the many firefighters who otherwise have to go out to other facilities to get the training they need.”
