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25 April 2025
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Fire stations of the world: Canada’s first net-zero fire station: Middlesex Centre's Fire Department fire hall in Coldstream
After years of planning and dreaming about it, Middlesex Centre firefighters finally have a new place to call home. Now in the past is the old structure on Ilderton Road, initially used as a school, that for decades served as a station for various generations of local firefighters.
On Thursday, 20 December 2017, representatives from the municipality, as well as local residents and the area’s MP and MPP, gathered for the official opening of the department’s new fire hall in Coldstream, a 10 000 sq. ft., $2,8 million state-of-the-art facility officials hope will serve the community for the next 60 years.
The new hall, believed to be Canada’s first net-zero, carbon-neutral fire station, is located right next to the municipal offices and the local library.
It has two charging stations for electric vehicles, solar panels on top of the structure and a large training section capable of accommodating up to 40 people.
Something Middlesex Centre fire Chief Colin Toth said he was particularly excited about. “The biggest thing for us was the space,” he said when asked about some of the challenges they faced at the older fire hall. “When my firefighters were doing their training they would have to pull all the vehicles out . . . and do the best they could. This training facility is state-of-the-art. We have Wi-Fi, we have multiple connections to connect different devices and we are going to be hosting a lot of training events for local and surrounding firefighters now that we can. It gives us that ability.”
Though the idea of building a new hall had been floated around for many years, it wasn’t probably until 2009 when things started to take shape before really accelerating in 2014, said Scott Mairs, director of community services for the municipality. “It has been an interesting process to get us to this stage,” he said. “Lots of conversations, lots of meetings, lots of co-ordination and planning that went into it, so it was by no means a small undertaking.”
As part of the planning, it was also important for the municipality to leave room for expansion, Mairs added. “We didn’t want to undersell ourselves,” he said.
A point also praised by Toth. “It seems everything in the fire service, the trucks are getting bigger, and the responsibilities and requirements firefighters are expected to provide keep growing and growing, so the facility will grow with us and we are looking well into the future with this facility,” he said.
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton, who was present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, said the new hall was a needed and long-awaited addition to the community and praised council for its vision for the project. “Middlesex Centre is one of those municipalities in Middlesex County and around London that is really growing, so having a new state-of-the-art fire department will serve this community and families here for generations to come,” he said. “They have about 25 volunteer firefighters based out of Coldstream and having a facility like this will only encourage more volunteers to come forward and serve.”
Background
Coldstream is one of many small hamlets in the Municipality of Middlesex Centre, which is located northwest of the City of London. The Coldstream Fire Station is one of five fire stations in Middlesex Centre, with 24 paid-on-call firefighters who live in the community and dedicate their time to serve.
The new Coldstream Fire Station opened in December 2017. The road to get here was not an easy one. As with many municipal projects of this size, it came with its fair share of hurdles to overcome. I need to take you back a few years to highlight some the challenges that were met along the way. Looking back, I can say that the construction phase was the easy part!
The original Coldstream Fire Station, located 300 m down the road from its current site, was built in 1880 as the new town hall and community centre, and had served many purposes over the years. From 1920 to 1925 it was a school and eventually became the home of the then Lobo Fire Department in 1969. As the station grew to house four fire vehicles and a boat for the Water Rescue Team, the old site no longer met the needs of the growing fire department and it posed many infrastructure challenges. The time had to come for the municipality to replace the station.
The municipality had set aside funds in the capital budget for a new station. When a more serious push to build a new station began in 2015, we quickly realized that the budget that was set aside fell far short of what we needed to build. This was well before we even mentioned the words Net-Zero. Staff had many conversations with Council to secure the funds for the project to move forward.
With funds secured, our first order of business was to hire an architect to help us identify the functional needs of the building design and establish a complete project budget. G. Douglas Vallee Limited was selected as the primary consultant.
At the onset, the project was like many others as we worked through the basic elements of a new build. The late Al Edmondson was the mayor of the municipality at the time, and he had a vision for the municipality to be more “green friendly.” Mayor Al would often send staff sustainability articles and ideas for us to pursue. I do believe it was his vision for the municipality that helped bring this Net-Zero project to fruition.
“In late 2015, the project team began focusing on the possibility of a Net-Zero facility. I will say that I was late to the table in believing that this was the project of choice for such an investment. I mean, this was a fire station that sat empty the majority of the time, and we were having a hard enough time convincing our municipal council and community that the project budget needed to be more than double of what was originally set aside – and now we are asking for an additional 15 percent for sustainable features. This most certainly made for some interesting discussions and debates with our Project Steering Committee.”
“However, with available grants coming on line, a strong project team in place and the support of council and the community behind us, the stars began to align to truly make this a success story.”
A grant through the Green Municipal Fund of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) allowed the municipality to complete a feasibility study for the Net-Zero fire station. Jim Fonger and his team at Ameresco looked at many design options, working closely with the project team and our primary consultant, Vallee. Following a design charrette (strategy session), the team narrowed down which building system would work for this project. This charrette was critical in identifying how we were going to achieve our target of becoming a Net-Zero facility, with solar and geothermal being the big-ticket items to help get us there.
With the project budget approved and all the studies completed, construction of the $2.8 million fire station began in March 2017. The station officially opened in ten months later, in December 2017.
Once the new fire station was in operation, the work began to justify that the building was truly Net-Zero. One of the unique features of this build was how we decided to best harness the solar energy we would be generating. The new fire station shares the site with the municipal office. The design allows for any solar energy that is harnessed but not used at the fire station be sent to the municipal office and for any energy remaining after the office had gobbled it up, to be sent back to the grid for a credit. Utilising Intellimeter software, they can continually monitor and record the energy use right down to the circuit level and measure this data against the solar energy created.
They reported that the facility is not only meeting its Net-Zero target but is exceeding expectations. The total solar energy generated from 1 June 2019 to 31 May 2020 was 68 911.21 KWH. Total consumed during the same time period was 65,295.00 KWH, exceeding their target by 3 616.21.
“Our fire service is proud of this building and they are embracing the sustainability ethos of the building in their operations. Colin Toth, the fire chief for Middlesex Centre, comments that, “Middlesex Centre Fire Services has adopted the municipal direction in support of green energy and initiatives. The fires service has moved towards operationalizing ‘green energy’ tools such as battery-operated scene lights, auto extrication tools, and energy-efficient flashlights, among other initiatives.”
“Mayor Al had a green vision for this municipality and with this project and those going forward, we honour his legacy by being good stewards of the environment and making sustainability a priority.”
Sources: Strathroy Age Dispatch, Local Authority Services (LAS), John Angus and Associates Inc
On Thursday, 20 December 2017, representatives from the municipality, as well as local residents and the area’s MP and MPP, gathered for the official opening of the department’s new fire hall in Coldstream, a 10 000 sq. ft., $2,8 million state-of-the-art facility officials hope will serve the community for the next 60 years.
The new hall, believed to be Canada’s first net-zero, carbon-neutral fire station, is located right next to the municipal offices and the local library.
It has two charging stations for electric vehicles, solar panels on top of the structure and a large training section capable of accommodating up to 40 people.
Something Middlesex Centre fire Chief Colin Toth said he was particularly excited about. “The biggest thing for us was the space,” he said when asked about some of the challenges they faced at the older fire hall. “When my firefighters were doing their training they would have to pull all the vehicles out . . . and do the best they could. This training facility is state-of-the-art. We have Wi-Fi, we have multiple connections to connect different devices and we are going to be hosting a lot of training events for local and surrounding firefighters now that we can. It gives us that ability.”
Though the idea of building a new hall had been floated around for many years, it wasn’t probably until 2009 when things started to take shape before really accelerating in 2014, said Scott Mairs, director of community services for the municipality. “It has been an interesting process to get us to this stage,” he said. “Lots of conversations, lots of meetings, lots of co-ordination and planning that went into it, so it was by no means a small undertaking.”
As part of the planning, it was also important for the municipality to leave room for expansion, Mairs added. “We didn’t want to undersell ourselves,” he said.
A point also praised by Toth. “It seems everything in the fire service, the trucks are getting bigger, and the responsibilities and requirements firefighters are expected to provide keep growing and growing, so the facility will grow with us and we are looking well into the future with this facility,” he said.
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton, who was present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, said the new hall was a needed and long-awaited addition to the community and praised council for its vision for the project. “Middlesex Centre is one of those municipalities in Middlesex County and around London that is really growing, so having a new state-of-the-art fire department will serve this community and families here for generations to come,” he said. “They have about 25 volunteer firefighters based out of Coldstream and having a facility like this will only encourage more volunteers to come forward and serve.”
Background
Coldstream is one of many small hamlets in the Municipality of Middlesex Centre, which is located northwest of the City of London. The Coldstream Fire Station is one of five fire stations in Middlesex Centre, with 24 paid-on-call firefighters who live in the community and dedicate their time to serve.
The new Coldstream Fire Station opened in December 2017. The road to get here was not an easy one. As with many municipal projects of this size, it came with its fair share of hurdles to overcome. I need to take you back a few years to highlight some the challenges that were met along the way. Looking back, I can say that the construction phase was the easy part!
The original Coldstream Fire Station, located 300 m down the road from its current site, was built in 1880 as the new town hall and community centre, and had served many purposes over the years. From 1920 to 1925 it was a school and eventually became the home of the then Lobo Fire Department in 1969. As the station grew to house four fire vehicles and a boat for the Water Rescue Team, the old site no longer met the needs of the growing fire department and it posed many infrastructure challenges. The time had to come for the municipality to replace the station.
The municipality had set aside funds in the capital budget for a new station. When a more serious push to build a new station began in 2015, we quickly realized that the budget that was set aside fell far short of what we needed to build. This was well before we even mentioned the words Net-Zero. Staff had many conversations with Council to secure the funds for the project to move forward.
With funds secured, our first order of business was to hire an architect to help us identify the functional needs of the building design and establish a complete project budget. G. Douglas Vallee Limited was selected as the primary consultant.
At the onset, the project was like many others as we worked through the basic elements of a new build. The late Al Edmondson was the mayor of the municipality at the time, and he had a vision for the municipality to be more “green friendly.” Mayor Al would often send staff sustainability articles and ideas for us to pursue. I do believe it was his vision for the municipality that helped bring this Net-Zero project to fruition.
“In late 2015, the project team began focusing on the possibility of a Net-Zero facility. I will say that I was late to the table in believing that this was the project of choice for such an investment. I mean, this was a fire station that sat empty the majority of the time, and we were having a hard enough time convincing our municipal council and community that the project budget needed to be more than double of what was originally set aside – and now we are asking for an additional 15 percent for sustainable features. This most certainly made for some interesting discussions and debates with our Project Steering Committee.”
“However, with available grants coming on line, a strong project team in place and the support of council and the community behind us, the stars began to align to truly make this a success story.”
A grant through the Green Municipal Fund of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) allowed the municipality to complete a feasibility study for the Net-Zero fire station. Jim Fonger and his team at Ameresco looked at many design options, working closely with the project team and our primary consultant, Vallee. Following a design charrette (strategy session), the team narrowed down which building system would work for this project. This charrette was critical in identifying how we were going to achieve our target of becoming a Net-Zero facility, with solar and geothermal being the big-ticket items to help get us there.
With the project budget approved and all the studies completed, construction of the $2.8 million fire station began in March 2017. The station officially opened in ten months later, in December 2017.
Once the new fire station was in operation, the work began to justify that the building was truly Net-Zero. One of the unique features of this build was how we decided to best harness the solar energy we would be generating. The new fire station shares the site with the municipal office. The design allows for any solar energy that is harnessed but not used at the fire station be sent to the municipal office and for any energy remaining after the office had gobbled it up, to be sent back to the grid for a credit. Utilising Intellimeter software, they can continually monitor and record the energy use right down to the circuit level and measure this data against the solar energy created.
They reported that the facility is not only meeting its Net-Zero target but is exceeding expectations. The total solar energy generated from 1 June 2019 to 31 May 2020 was 68 911.21 KWH. Total consumed during the same time period was 65,295.00 KWH, exceeding their target by 3 616.21.
“Our fire service is proud of this building and they are embracing the sustainability ethos of the building in their operations. Colin Toth, the fire chief for Middlesex Centre, comments that, “Middlesex Centre Fire Services has adopted the municipal direction in support of green energy and initiatives. The fires service has moved towards operationalizing ‘green energy’ tools such as battery-operated scene lights, auto extrication tools, and energy-efficient flashlights, among other initiatives.”
“Mayor Al had a green vision for this municipality and with this project and those going forward, we honour his legacy by being good stewards of the environment and making sustainability a priority.”
Sources: Strathroy Age Dispatch, Local Authority Services (LAS), John Angus and Associates Inc
