buildings of distinction
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O MATTER WHETHER the exterior is tra-ditional,
coastal or modern, the interior of any
new station has to be designed and equipped to
enable firefighters to fulfill their mission of keep-ing
the community safe.
That’s certainly true of Station 3. It might
be old school in appearance, but it is a thor-oughly
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
modern facility.
The big red doors that are aesthetically pleasing are bi-fold doors
that completely open in six seconds, about twice as fast as the rollup
kind.
“Every second is critical,” Blackley says. “They are more expen-sive,
but the return on investment is greater. The parts don’t break
as often as they do on a regular rollup door. They will last the
lifetime of the station. They are hurricane-wind rated. They open
much quicker, and you can see when they are completely open.
We’ve had it happen where you are in a truck and you think it’s
open but the door is still going up.”
The apparatus bay is the first in the city with a safe air tech-nology
system mounted in the ceiling. The other stations have a
system called Plymovent, which removes exhaust fumes through a
yellow hose attached to the tailpipe of the truck. The new system
senses when a fire truck starts and sucks the exhaust and harm-ful
fumes from the diesel engines out of the bay. The technology
includes programming to send an email alert when the filters are
dirty so they can be replaced.
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