County fire officials are working toward a new firefighter training facility in North Chapel Hill to replace older, deteriorating facilities.

This week, Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matt Sullivan and officials from other fire departments across the county met with the Chapel Hill Town Council to discuss the rezoning to the proposed training site on Millhouse Road near the Eubanks Park-and-Ride and other town facilities.

Sullivan spoke about the long-standing need for a facility equally accessible to all county departments.

“The existence and need for a fire training facility in Orange County to serve all departments has been an issue we’ve been struggling with for some time.”

The current building used to train firefighters in simulated fire emergencies is several years over its intended 30-year lifespan. To help show just how old the current facility is, Sullivan brought the council a news article from the facility’s first drills in the late 1980s. A picture from the news story shows Sullivan taking part in firefighting drills and identifies the now decades-long veteran as a “rookie.”

“In that picture you’ll see me, in 1988, as a public safety officer, going into the…smoke,” he said at the May 8 meeting. “I’m in the front, yes ma’am. That is me.”

Many things have changed since those first exercises at the multiple-story concrete training structure, including new town growth into neighboring areas. Fire officials say they’d like to see their training facility moved away from the busy intersection at Weaver Dairy Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the new residential developments springing up nearby.

Ultimately, the training facility will be used by all of the different Orange County fire departments, so officials are looking for a permanent location more central in the county: possibly somewhere around Hillsborough, Sullivan said. For now, this proposed location would be temporary.

“I don’t know how long that will take,” Sullivan said. “At least five years we’ll be on Millhouse. In the event the county can identify a location, then we’ll move it.”

The project is on a tight deadline. Funding is coming from a FEMA grant that needs to be used by this September.

The Town Council could hold a vote in June to allow the placement on Millhouse Road.

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