By MIKE RICE
The Kansas City Star
Kansas City International Airport officials say a $5 million safety project already operational is designed to save precious seconds should the unthinkable ever happen.
KCIs new fire station strategically placed on a grassy airfield island behind Terminals A and B and close to all three runways is open.
From that location, firefighters would be able to reach any emergency on the runways in less than two minutes, well within the three-minute response time the Federal Aviation Administration requires.
This station increases the operational efficiency of the firefighting operation, said Melvin Price, the Kansas City Aviation Departments project manager for the new station.
Matt Mauer, the airports fire battalion chief, put it more simply: Quicker is better when a plane is on fire, he said.
Mauer said the $5 million station, which firefighters moved into last month, is a vast improvement over the former airport fire station at 125 Paris St.
The old station is adjacent to the north-south runway on the airports west side.
It had served as the airports only on-site fire station since opening in 1972.
Firefighters were able to meet the federal three-minute response time guideline from the former station, officials said.
But meeting that guideline had been more challenging since the airports third runway, on the east side, opened in 1994.
At 15,000 square feet, the new station is almost twice as large as the old one. That means the new station can accommodate bigger and more technologically advanced airport fire trucks.
The city recently purchased two airport fire trucks. One truck with a 3,000-gallon tank carries water, dry chemicals and foam that can put out jet-fuel fires.
Another new fire truck has a 1,500-gallon tank and a boom on top that can penetrate a burning aircraft or shoot foam inside a crashed fuselage.
Mauer said those new vehicles would not have fit in the old station.
The new station has six bays. The vehicles will occupy four of those bays. Another will be used for vehicle maintenance and the other for storage.
The old stations three bays had no room for storage or maintenance, Price said.
Mauer said it barely had room for the fire trucks.
We dont have to squeeze our way around the fire trucks anymore, he said.
The 29-foot-tall bay has hydraulic-powered doors that can open within six seconds.
And the doors are light enough that firefighters would be able to lift them manually with pulleys in case of a malfunction.
The new station also has room for hands-on training with equipment. It has living quarters, a kitchen, a weight room and a living room.
The new station has 14-inch-thick concrete walls that will keep loud airplane noises out, Price said. It has its own emergency generating system.
Outside the bays, the pavement is heated 20 feet beyond the doors.
A federal grant is paying for 75 percent of the project, and airport revenue funds are paying for the rest, Price said.
The station has three 24-hour shifts, and eight firefighters are assigned to each shift.
Mauer said firefighters feel some sense of isolation at the new station because, unlike the old station, it is in a restricted area.
That means firefighters cannot park their personal vehicles outside the station.
Instead, they take a shuttle between the station and the security gates.
The firefighters can feel kind of marooned for 24 hours, Mauer said.
But when measuring such a dilemma against the responsibility of saving people from a burning plane, he admitted that such problems are minor hiccups.