A new facility in Orono aims to provide firefighters from three area towns with hands-on training they and future firefighters will need.
The Tri-Town Training Facility is a combined effort involving the Orono, Veazie and Glenburn fire departments, and has so far already hosted training for Glenburn and Veazie firefighters. It’s the product of a yearslong effort to develop a facility so firefighters from the three towns have a dependable place to go for hands-on training.
“Before this, we used our fire station for training. We were using windows to bail out of, throwing ladders up against the building,” said Orono Fire Captain Kevin Sirois, who’s been the department’s training officer for the last five years. “So we weren’t doing any favors to the building, but we had to train our people.”
So far, the facility consists of storage containers atop a concrete pad with a wooden staircase.
It has cost about $15,000 so far, and there will be future additions and an official ribbon cutting ceremony in spring 2022. Even before that happens, the structure is serving as a training ground where the three departments can move beyond manuals, Sirois said.
“We have recruits that we must train and that isn’t going to change. We have, probably, a few years of turnover that’s going to occur as far as people retiring and needing to hire people,” Sirois said. “So this will allow us to train our people to our training standards.”
Something that sets the facility apart, Sirois said, is that the firefighters contributed ideas for it based on their experiences and then built it themselves.
“We could say that we looked at other training facilities, but really, it was ideas from everyone,” he said. “It’s unique. I don’t think there’s another one out there like this.”
Sirois approached leaders in Orono five years ago asking for $50,000 to build a training center. Part of the request was because fewer people were offering to donate their structures so the fire department could use them for training. In addition, using other people’s property for training can be complex, Sirois said.
The new facility firefighters have built has come in well under $50,000 with the help of many community partners who donated labor, materials and equipment, including Orono’s public works department, Sirois said.
The structure is now available to the three fire departments that fronted the cost and labor.
In the future, the Orono Police Department will also be welcome to use it, and there may be an opportunity for other area fire departments to use it, Sirois said.
Nearly every member of the Orono Fire Department helped in some way, Sirois said.
“Really, pulling everyone in and making this the training facility that everyone had a part in — that buy-in and self-realization — really does affect the mentality of the firefighters,” he said.