By By ERIN VER BERKMOES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - The Niles Township Fire Department along with the Niles Township Board of Trustees would like to invite members of the Niles community to an open house to celebrate the dedication of the new south fire station.
The open house will be from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30, at new station which is located at 2049 S. Third St. A dedication ceremony will take place at 2 p.m.
The Niles Township Fire Department, which has eight full time firefighters and 23 on-call firefighters, moved into their new station in mid April after a long construction process.
Brovold said it's a good feeling to have everything under one roof and to be able to operate out of the station. It's also nice to be able to show it off to people.
At the old station located just around the corner on Bell Road the department didn't have enough room.
They didn't have an actual training room, the would have to squeeze around the kitchen table or go out in the apparatus bay to do their training.
They also had just one bathroom, which meant people often had to wait and the sleeping quarters at the old station had four guys sharing one room.
At the new station they have four apparatus bays which allow them to store all of their equipment, trailers and have a work bench. The station also has five bathrooms, meaning there isn't likely to be a lot of waiting. There are also four separate bedrooms which means the on duty firefighters can have some privacy while resting. Finally the new station has a large training room which allows more training to be done, there is a separate kitchen and living room and adequate office space for the fire chief, secretary and the volunteer members of the department.
Brovold added they are really just looking to have something the people of the community can have pride in and also for them to be able to see what their money was spent on.
Brovold would also like to thank all those individuals and businesses in the community who donated things for the new station including furniture, workout equipment and shelving.