Mooresville Fire Proposes to Build Fire Training Facility

MOORESVILLE – The Mooresville Fire Department hopes to construct a five-story, $504,000 metal building in which firefighters from across Iredell and other counties can train to fight fires.

Fire Chief Wes Greene said the building would save the town $38,000 because firefighters would no longer have to travel for training to a similar facility at Gaston College in Gaston County twice a year. With three shifts, the department makes six trips a year there with its equipment – two trips per shift.

The department, which has 87 personnel, would now be able to train every day, Greene said. The building would be on town-owned land isolated from the public behind the Mooresville Public Operations Center, 2523 Charlotte Highway (U.S. 21), fire officials said.

The Mooresville Board of Commissioners is scheduled to consider funding the facility at its Jan. 3 regular meeting, including an additional $322,607 for a 24-foot entrance road, utility extensions, a 150-foot by 150-foot training facility concrete area and a parking area with a security fence. Greene said Mooresville has 25 multi-story buildings, many of them four and five stories, so having the training building is critical.

The building will have three rooms where firefighters will train putting out live fires. Firefighters will also practice search and rescue, confined-space and high-angle rescues, forcible-entry techniques and high-rise responses by a single fire company or multiple fire companies.

The department, meanwhile, has received $2,000 annual fee commitments to use the building from the Lake Norman, Shepherds, South Iredell, Troutman, Mount Mourne and Sherrills Ford fire departments and Mitchell Community College.

The building will also be available to regional fire training schools and fire departments in Rowan and other counties for $2,000 annually, said Shane LaCount, assistant Mooresville fire chief for training. Mooresville police plan to train in the building.

“This will serve our needs today and in the years to come,” LaCount told the Mooresville Board of Commissioners at its Dec. 2 pre-agenda meeting.

The town “has plenty of cash” to pay for the project and won’t need to finance it, Maia Setzer, the town’s director of administration and finance, told the board.