CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Concerned Cuyahoga Falls residents packed a July 17 city council meeting to express their concerns over a proposed new fire station burn tower and fire training facility.
Residents at the meeting made it clear they are overwhelmingly in favor of a new fire station to replace old fire station #4 on Northampton Road but told News 5 that the burn tower and fire training facility part of the plan should be moved to a more remote location due to safety and environmental concerns.
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Concerned Homeowner Danielle Wilson told News 5 the city did not issue an adequate warning about the proposed project, so she's created a petition drive to try and get the vote on the burn tower delay and see if another building site for the fire training facility.
“I felt blindsided when I heard this was going to the planning commission, so I created this petition to actually gauge what the community wants," Wilson said. “There’s no way that there’s not going to be an impact. Is it going to be toxic? We don’t know, but there is certainly going to be an impact on the peace of this environment.”
Homeowner Russ Iona lives 1/2 mile away from the proposed location for the burn tower and believes smoke from the tower will be an issue. “In just 200 feet, we have a dog park, we have playground, we have pickle ball courts, we have basketball courts, and we have a fire station, nobody was property notified about this," Iona said. “This is a training facility for 12 to 16 other municipalities plus the University of Akron. When they say smoke, water, traffic are not issues, I just don’t believe that.”
Homeowner Brenda Meyers agrees the proposed burn tower presents a potential health and safety issue.
“It's in a place where it should not belong. I live on West Bath Road a place that doesn’t have fire hydrant safety. We do not have water if a spark would occur," Meyers said. “Today in the City of Cuyahoga Falls, they canceled outside activities due to poor air quality due to the air quality right now. If we had a burn tower here, that would make it even worse.”
However, Chief Chris Martin, with the Cuyahoga Falls Fire Department, who attended the July 17 city council meeting, again defended the proposal for a burn tower and fire training facility at the old fire station location.
Martin told News 5 he's confident in his fire department's ability to control the smoke and control the atmosphere.
“It’s hard, almost impossible, to know how many times we’re going to burn. We are going to set a maximum number of times that we will burn to make sure that we don’t overuse the facility. It’s going to be part of the ordinance when it’s drafted,” Martin said. “We have to comply with all EPA standards. It has to be a permitted facility and a permitted burn every time we burn.”
Martin told News 5 that the fires at the proposed fire tower will be very small and utilize easily controlled wood pallets and straw.
“Here in the City of Cuyahoga Falls, you can build a five-by-five-foot bonfire. Ours will be less than that. It’s a finite amount of smoke that we are going control," Martin said. ”If weather and wind conditions are not conducive to training and smoke is traveling where we don’t want it, where it creates an unsafe environment, we’re not going to train. We are either going to postpone or cancel the training altogether.”
Cuyahoga Falls Ward 8 Councilman Frank Stams also agreed with resident concerns and told News 5 he would vote against the proposal, but said it's not clear if the project would get the required majority of 6 votes if it was voted on next week.
News 5 will continue to follow through on this developing story.
