Helps meet city’s commitment to provincial fire safety plan
Published December 16 , 2009
By Martin C. Barry • TLN
Photo: Martin C. Barry
Officials with the Laval Fire Department officials and the City
of Laval pose for a group shot in the main garage of the new
firehall in Ste-Dorothée.
Built according to LEED principles for ecological sustainability, the Laval Fire Department’s new firehall in Sainte-Dorothée has been designed to ensure that firefighters who could be spending days at a time on duty inside won’t be exposed to environmental hazards. The City of Laval and the fire department say they are making the firefighters’ health a priority.
LEED eco-design
Located on rue Principale at the corner of Boulevard de l’Hôtel de Ville, the new building replaces an older one just a stone’s throw away. Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, Laval fire chief Alain Gauthier, city councillors and fire department employees were on hand Dec. 2 for the official opening. The building incorporates some of the latest ideas for environmental friendliness based on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). The accreditation process from the LEED organization is currently underway.
“The construction of this new firehall in Saint-Dorothée allows the City of Laval to meet the requirements of the coverage scheme established by Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security, notably with regards to eventual risks involving fires on our territory, and it is thus another tool for management at the fire department,” Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt said in a short speech. “In order to deal with the various risks, this tool will allow us to predict necessary prevention measures that will allow for the reduction of fire risks and result in increased protection for Laval residents.”
The 10 and 10 rule
One of the requirements of Quebec’s fire protection coverage scheme is that fire departments need to be able to dispatch 10 firefighters to the scene of a fire event within 10 minutes anywhere on Laval’s territory. To meet the goal, the city needed to build a new firehall and chose to do so in Sainte-Dorothée. The old firehall, which was originally the town hall of Sainte-Dorothée, was too small to accommodate more firefighters, new trucks and more equipment. The old building will continue to be used to store spare trucks and equipment.
The old firehall’s second floor will be accessible to the population as the home of the Firefighters Museum, which is slated to open its doors in the next few months. While the new firehall helps meet Laval’s fire security obligations, it is also the City of Laval’s first LEED building. Among the energy-conserving innovations incorporated in it are a centrally-controlled lighting system that minimizes consumption of electricity, and water-conservation technology that utilizes rainfall.
Reducing eco-hazards
While firefighters do highly physical work and are often in top shape as a result, they also spend a large amount of time confined in the firehall where they can be exposed to health hazards. Among other things, residue from fire smoke gets into the atmosphere of a firehall. At the new firehall, a ventilation system will ensure residual fumes and exhaust from the trucks are expelled. “A building like this allows not only for the conservation of energy, but also reduces operating costs,” said Gauthier.