HAMPDEN – Sheba took her time moving into the new fire station.

Unlike her human counterparts, the mixed Labrador retriever was not excited about all that extra space the $2 million addition to the municipal building gave the police and fire departments in the growing community. The mascot of the town’s public safety workers preferred the cramped, cozy and outdated former quarters.

Elwyn Brewer, an on-call firefighter since 1964, totally disagreed. The two-story expansion measuring 60 by 90 feet puts police, fire and municipal services under one roof to meet the changes that have taken place in the town since he moved there as a young family man in 1960.

“The training back then was good, but it’s better now,” he said when he stopped in for some coffee and chat with full-time staff. “The equipment’s better, too. Back then, we had no air packs. You’d just go in, breathe as long as you could, then get the devil out of there and gulp for air.”

The addition was funded with a $1.7 million bond approved by voters in November 2000 and with some reserve funds. Ground was broken in late July 2001, and construction took a year to complete.

The addition consolidated the town’s two fire stations on Main Road North and on Route 202 in West Hampden. The addition includes six bays as well as a kitchen and large community room that can be used for meetings, training sessions and as a public shelter in case of emergencies. Two bathrooms, three dorm-type sleeping quarters, offices and equipment-storage space also were added for the Fire Department.

The addition also has a larger dispatch area, plus a lobby with restrooms for the public, and is accessible to the handicapped. The Police Department also gained more office and storage space. The air-conditioning system, scrapped when the municipal building was completed in 1991, was finally installed.

Police Sgt. Dan Stewart said during a recent tour that the addition meets the needs of the growing community. A 16-year veteran of the department, he said that more business in town has increased traffic, and that is expected to increase when the town’s business park is completed.

“The outlying areas used to be very rural, now they’re housing developments,” he observed. “The quality of life is important to people here. While most of our calls are about barking dogs and speeding cars, people expect that when they call the police department, someone is coming to take their complaint.”

Brewer agreed that the changes in the community over the years have changed the way the Fire Department responds. Due to public education and home smoke detectors, there are about 20 per cent fewer house fires than there were 30 years ago, he said. Today, the ambulance calls far outnumber the fire calls. One thing hasn’t changed, he observed.

“A fire is still a fire. They’re all the same,” said Brewer. “The worst ones are the ones with a fatality. My first was 18 or 20 years ago on the Patterson Road. We had to sift through the ashes half the night looking for parts of him.”

The veteran firefighter offers advice to newcomers like 23-year-old Jonathan Hicks – “Get in there and get involved even if you make mistakes. You’ll learn from them.”

Hicks said he took that advice to heart when one of his first calls was a 50-car pileup on Interstate 95 on Jan. 25, 2001.

“You can stand back,” he said, “but you’re not going to have an idea what to do the next time unless you get in there. I’ve decided to get my EMT [license] so I can do more and be more involved.”

Whether they are full-time, part-time or on-call employees of Hampden’s Public Safety Department, they all agree that just about everything in the new building is bigger and more comfortable than it was in the old. Of course, they still have to move Sheba off the couch to sit down, but they now have a fire pole, which neither fire station had before.

Police officers and firefighters agreed that while they were grateful to have their working conditions improved, it was the safety of Hampden residents that was enhanced with the completion of the addition.

An open house at the new facility will be held during Fire Safety Week, Oct. 7-11. Tours of the fire station will be offered from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. that week.