It’s New Year’s Eve, and Ron Early is settling in for what can sometimes be a dicey night for first responders. Early has been Chief of the Town of Wake Forest Fire Department (WFFD) for the better part of 18 years and has helped keep the department aligned with the needs of a fast-growing community. He’s also had to keep the Town’s firefighting resources, both manpower and equipment, attuned to changes in “the business” of a municipal fire department.
Still, Early spares a few minutes to chat about the future, an exciting feature of which will be the Town’s new Fire Station #6.
In recent months, Early has worked closely with Town leaders on planning the construction of the new asset. Located at 1621 and 1701 Wait Avenue east of downtown Wake Forest, the new facility should span an impressive 22,000 sq. ft. By comparison, most of the Town’s existing fire stations are about 8,000 sq. ft.
“Over the last year, we’ve tweaked the square footage,” Early says, noting the new station will serve as more than just another firehouse. It will, for example, include about 4,000 sq. ft. of training rooms and accommodations for firefighter trainees. “We’ll also have a burn building behind the facility,” he says, describing what amounts to a configuration of shipping containers that will serve as a live-fire simulation that firefighter trainees can extinguish. “We used to have to travel as far as Jordan Lake to train,” he says. Neighboring communities will also utilize the burn building for training.
The new campus itself will extend across about four and a half acres. “We had to buy two lots to give us enough space to build what we needed,” Early says. In determining both the need and the location of the new station, he and his colleagues followed national standards known as NFPA 1710 that seek to ensure fire departments can respond to residents and properties within four to six minutes. The development of Lennar’s 1,000-home community known as Rosedale helped direct the department to the acreage on the north side of Wait Avenue.
Town officials selected award-winning Edifice Construction of Charlotte for the project, which will also be supported by Timmons Group, a national development company headquartered in Richmond, Va., and Stewart, a Raleigh-based engineering and planning firm.
The Town of Wake Forest Fire Department boasts a unique legacy. Until 1983, the department was volunteer-only. From then until 2020, it operated as a private contractor to the Town. “The WFFD was the first private fire company in the state to serve a municipality,” Early says. It also partnered with Wake County. “In 2020, the Town took us back under the municipal umbrella,” he says. The current arrangement frees up resources for new facilities, equipment, and staffing. WFFD continues to provide services beyond the town limits. “Our Fire District serves about 42 to 43 square-miles -- about half of that is rural and about half is municipal,” Early explains.
Meeting evolving first-responder needs includes not just new residential growth but recent changes to the Town’s economy and business community. “There’s commercial and industrial growth here also, and we try to keep an eye on that so we can know how to respond,” Early says. “The design of business facilities can change how we respond. It makes a difference.”
Take the size of today’s firefighting apparatus: “Our fire trucks are getting smaller,” Early says. “In order to fit into alleyways and smaller streets, a lot of our trucks now are smaller to accommodate growth and changes within the Town,” he says. “Regardless of what it is, we will respond. We just have to know how to do business.”
Along with facilities and equipment, human factors are always a priority. Currently, Early’s department has 164 firefighters, with that number expected to reach 200 by the end of 2027. They include full-time, part-time, and volunteer firefighters. “It’s always a concern that we have the right people, and it’s getting harder and harder to get more personnel,” Early says. To prevent other fire departments from poaching from Early’s team, his department has raised pay.
Incoming firefighters require more training than they used to. “It’s about a nine-month process for someone without any training to become fully qualified,” Early says. Recruitment is getting harder, he says, due perhaps to Covid-related concerns or the unfashionable perception that firefighters are still blue-collar workers. Such stereotypes are outdated, he says. “We also respond to medical calls, but it’s hard to compete with private employers.”
Most recruits are males in their early 20s, and firefighters usually retire after hitting 50. “It’s physically demanding work, and that’s not as appealing as it used to be,” Early says. A few women have joined the department over the years, but they eventually move on to other jobs. Chief Early notes that in March of this year, his department will advertise for 15 new firefighter positions, some of whom will be assigned to Fire Station #6 once it is completed.
“The Town is fortunate to have forward-thinking leaders who are always looking downrange to keep mission-critical public services aligned with future needs,” says Jason Cannon, President of the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership (WFBIP). “In Fire Station #6, we will have a state-of-the-art training center, as well as the firefighting resources capable of keeping our businesses and residents safe. This exciting new facility will support commercial growth as well as our ongoing economic development vision,” Cannon says.
