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14 February 2025
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Fire stations of the world: Poudre Fire Authority Station 8, Timnath, Colorado, US
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Poudre Fire Authority's Station No 8 is a mansion compared to the aged brick building that once served as the staging area for firefighters whose coverage area centred on Timnath and stretched to east Fort Collins in Colorado in the US. Crews that were temporarily housed in a trailer during the roughly nine-month construction project moved into the high-tech, hyper-efficient Station No 8 on 23 December 2016, with Saturday, 28 January 2017 marking the new fire station’s public unveiling and official grand opening ceremony.
This four-bay, eight-bed fire station focused on functional comfort for its staff. The building features four apparatus bays, a training tower, a gym and an office on the south side of the building. On the north end of the building, there is a full kitchen, community room, eight sleeping quarters and six bathrooms. The training tower is equipped with multiple training props used for practice in window exits, rappelling and other rescue manoeuvres.
The station contains a facility-wide alert system tied to dispatch, with an alert feature for the lighting system allowing for a visual indicator of an alert and optimisation for night time operations. All of these elements are tied to an emergency power system that assures the station is operational at all times.
"This is a big day for us," PFA Chief Tom DeMint told the approximately 300 people crowded inside the station's spacious south bay. Scores more came and went through the morning, eager to scope out engines new and old and mill around living quarters and new training areas.
After a groundbreaking in March, Brinkman Construction Inc built the 15 449-square-foot station at 4800 Signal Tree Drive, south of Timnath's downtown district and east of Interstate 25.
Timnath, PFA and the Poudre Valley Fire Protection District’s original agreement to build the station dates to 2012, though conversations were ongoing since at least 2009. The three parties budgeted about $5.5 million for the project; $2.25 million from the PFA Capital Reserve, $1.8 million from the town of Timnath’s Escrow Reserve for Capital and $1.44 million from the fire district’s Capital Reserve, the Coloradoan reported previously.
For decades, Timnath was served exclusively by volunteer firefighters. As the population swelled, the demand for service followed and quickly began to outpace capabilities at the small downtown station that housed equipment and served as a staging area.
Full-time PFA firefighters started staffing the Timnath bureau in 2015. During construction, crews staffed a modular trailer behind Timnath's old fire station at 4101 Main Street.
Since the station opened using paid staff, the average total response time for the first arriving unit has reduced from 10 minutes and 23 seconds to 7 minutes and 56 seconds, according to data compiled by PFA.
In 2016, the first full year of service since transitioning from volunteer staffers, PFA Station 8 crews responded to 403 incidents in its coverage area. Most were clustered around the intersection of Harmony Road and Interstate 25 and more than half of those calls involved emergency medical service.
Engine 8 personnel also respond to incidents across PFA's 235-square-mile jurisdiction and provided mutual aid to nearby Windsor Severance Fire Rescue, bringing the total number incident responses to 719.
"The opening of this station represents the growing community and the growing volume of calls," DeMint said.
PFA has 13 other stations across the region but Station No 8 is among the most decked out. It includes a training tower as well as multiple built-in training props and serves as an alternate to the agency's primary existing training facility on Vine Drive in northwest Fort Collins.
"It is a community fire station," Timnath Mayor Jill Grossman-Belisle said, lauding the partnerships that went into bringing the station to town. "It just happens to reside in Timnath"
Sources: Poudre Fire Authority, The Coloradoan, Brinkman Construction
This four-bay, eight-bed fire station focused on functional comfort for its staff. The building features four apparatus bays, a training tower, a gym and an office on the south side of the building. On the north end of the building, there is a full kitchen, community room, eight sleeping quarters and six bathrooms. The training tower is equipped with multiple training props used for practice in window exits, rappelling and other rescue manoeuvres.
The station contains a facility-wide alert system tied to dispatch, with an alert feature for the lighting system allowing for a visual indicator of an alert and optimisation for night time operations. All of these elements are tied to an emergency power system that assures the station is operational at all times.
"This is a big day for us," PFA Chief Tom DeMint told the approximately 300 people crowded inside the station's spacious south bay. Scores more came and went through the morning, eager to scope out engines new and old and mill around living quarters and new training areas.
After a groundbreaking in March, Brinkman Construction Inc built the 15 449-square-foot station at 4800 Signal Tree Drive, south of Timnath's downtown district and east of Interstate 25.
Timnath, PFA and the Poudre Valley Fire Protection District’s original agreement to build the station dates to 2012, though conversations were ongoing since at least 2009. The three parties budgeted about $5.5 million for the project; $2.25 million from the PFA Capital Reserve, $1.8 million from the town of Timnath’s Escrow Reserve for Capital and $1.44 million from the fire district’s Capital Reserve, the Coloradoan reported previously.
For decades, Timnath was served exclusively by volunteer firefighters. As the population swelled, the demand for service followed and quickly began to outpace capabilities at the small downtown station that housed equipment and served as a staging area.
Full-time PFA firefighters started staffing the Timnath bureau in 2015. During construction, crews staffed a modular trailer behind Timnath's old fire station at 4101 Main Street.
Since the station opened using paid staff, the average total response time for the first arriving unit has reduced from 10 minutes and 23 seconds to 7 minutes and 56 seconds, according to data compiled by PFA.
In 2016, the first full year of service since transitioning from volunteer staffers, PFA Station 8 crews responded to 403 incidents in its coverage area. Most were clustered around the intersection of Harmony Road and Interstate 25 and more than half of those calls involved emergency medical service.
Engine 8 personnel also respond to incidents across PFA's 235-square-mile jurisdiction and provided mutual aid to nearby Windsor Severance Fire Rescue, bringing the total number incident responses to 719.
"The opening of this station represents the growing community and the growing volume of calls," DeMint said.
PFA has 13 other stations across the region but Station No 8 is among the most decked out. It includes a training tower as well as multiple built-in training props and serves as an alternate to the agency's primary existing training facility on Vine Drive in northwest Fort Collins.
"It is a community fire station," Timnath Mayor Jill Grossman-Belisle said, lauding the partnerships that went into bringing the station to town. "It just happens to reside in Timnath"
Sources: Poudre Fire Authority, The Coloradoan, Brinkman Construction