Somers/Lakeside Fire Chief Tom Havens couldn’t help but smile as he stood on the second floor overlooking the construction of the expansive vehicle bay of the new Somers Fire Hall Tuesday. If all goes as planned, he and his fellow firefighters will be moving into the new 12,000-square-foot facility sometime in November.
“We are getting excited. We are ready to get the construction done and move in as soon as possible,” Havens said. “We have been looking to make this expansion for a very long time.”
According to Havens, the plans for the new fire hall have been in the works for the past 20 years, but finding the right piece of land was tricky.
For more than 60 years, firefighters in Somers have been based in the fire hall located on Lesley Avenue in downtown Somers. While the facility may have been adequate when it was built in 1959, the all-volunteer department with more than 20 firefighters has long since outgrown the small, 4,700-square-foot building. Even with several completed expansion projects over the years, Havens said the building still struggles to house the department’s current vehicle fleet of four engines, two tenders, a wildland unit and two command vehicles.
In addition to the cramped space inside the building, the fire hall on Lesley Avenue is also located on a dead-end road next to the popular Del’s Bar, which can make getting to and from the fire hall difficult on weekends. When emergency vehicles are about to make it down Lesley Avenue, they then must negotiate a blind turn as they merge onto Somers Road.
“On a Friday or Saturday night, I can hardly get my truck down that road with all the congestion around Del’s,” Havens said. “We have to get the firemen to the station and get the trucks out as they come in. It’s all but impossible and it really impacts our response time. Even with our lights and sirens, we have had some near misses coming out on that blind corner.”
Covering the third largest area of the fire departments in the Flathead Valley, the Somers/Lakeside department has had to face those congested conditions several times over the past few years, responding to 188 calls so far this year, 300 in 2019 and a record 355 calls in 2018.
After renovations to the Lakeside fire hall were completed in 2019, the department decided it was time to take a serious look at expanding in Somers.
When the perfect property became available on the north side of Somers Road near Montana 82, the department decided to go to the voters with a $4 million bond proposal, which was approved easily via a write-in ballot in July 2019.
“Passing a bond issue on the first try, that never happens,” Havens said. “We were expecting to have to go back to the voters several times to get this through, but we lucked out.”
With the new funds in hand, the department originally planned to finish only the bottom floor of the new building in phase one of construction, but with the help of general contractor Martel Construction, the project has come in well under budget so far and both floors should be completed by November.
The new facility will include bays to accommodate a minimum of six vehicles, a training center, office space, a large community room and kitchen to provide a gathering place for a wide variety of events, including the Somers Annual Harvest Dinner, hosted each November, a bunk room and more.
“We are getting more building for less money in less time than we were expecting,” Havens said. “That doesn’t happen very often and we are very excited about it.”
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