Sullivan breaks ground at fire training center

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

BETHEL, NY — Sullivan County’s first responders will subject themselves to strenuous risk scenarios when the county’s new fire training center opens, and firemen attending the center’s groundbreaking last week seemed happy enough about the daunting regimen that awaits them.

“This is fantastic and long overdue,” said John Hauschild, a fireman for 18 years in Jeffersonville. “It’s going to help our firefighters in Sullivan County so much.”

Hauschild, a New York State-certified fire-fighting instructor, remembers a time when instructors traveled from firehouse to firehouse to teach. Even now, the county’s fire departments have to travel to facilities in other counties to do top-quality training.

Department chiefs formed a committee in 2000 to address the situation.

“They had been very frustrated because they lacked a modern training facility,” said Richard Martinkovic, the county’s emergency management coordinator. He is hopeful that the state-of-the-art training center will be completed by May 2006. Bulldozers were busy clearing the land as the center’s opening salvo took place on August 3.

“I can’t wait until the opening day comes,” said Paul Hemmer, another Jeffersonville fireman who is also chair of the Sullivan County Fire Advisory Board and co-chair of the committee that planned the training facility.

Live burns in the center’s future three-story steel tower, rappelling from the tower’s roof, confined-space risk scenarios and high-line electrical fires will all be part of the training available at the center, Hemmer said.

Hauschild said that once it is built, the new facility would allow fire departments from the county and elsewhere to train together since they are often called to fight fires together.

Last year the Town of Bethel sold the 11-acre property on the Old White Lake Turnpike to Sullivan County for $10,000 to help make the training center a possibility.

“We sold it at a low price because we wanted to have it for our firemen and work with the county,” said Bethel Supervisor Vicki Vassmer Simpson.

The late Assemblyman Jacob Gunther was able to secure the initial $100,000 for the $2.16 million center. Senator John Bonacic then guaranteed $1.125 million and the Sullivan County Legislature allocated about $900,000 to make up the difference.

Bonacic said Sullivan County is the only county in his senatorial district that does not have its own fire-training center.

“This is a good day, but when it’s built, it will be a great day,” Bonacic said.

Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther said she hoped the center would create opportunities for the county to increase volunteerism by offering more training that meets the state’s standards.