North Carolina Fire Marshal Brian Taylor gave a NC Emergency Training Center presentation at the Albemarle City Council’s June 26 meeting. Photo courtesy City of Albemarle

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ALBEMARLE — North Carolina Fire Marshal Brian Taylor attended and gave a brief presentation at the Albemarle City Council’s recent meeting on June 16 as the leading representative of the Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM).

On behalf of his office, Taylor provided updates on the construction process for the NC Emergency Training Center located at the Stanly County Airport in New London and also presented a successful request for a one-time waiver for an initial five million gallons of water.

Plans for the 911 center, operated by the OSFM in partnership with the NC Air National Guard Fire Department and Stanly County, were originally established in 2017 and given financial assistance four years later with the help of a bipartisan state budget bill.

“We have just completed part of the facility and we hope to be done with phase one by September,” Taylor told the council. “Today, we are at $87 million investment in this and that is just the start of it. I’m very proud of this facility.”

Designed to provide firefighters and rescue members with specialized training, the project is positioned to evolve into the most advanced emergency training ground in the country with a state-of-the-art Aircraft Fire Fighting flight-crash simulator.

Swift water rescue, aircraft firefighting, urban search and rescue, hazmat, and fire investigation technician courses are among the training areas that the facility will focus on.

“There is a sister water rescue facility in Oriskany, New York, but what makes this one different and unique than any other in the country is that we’ll be able to put motorized boats in this facility,” Taylor said. “By having this here, it’s a controlled environment. And as we have seen in Albemarle alone over the last couple of months, the fire department has responded with its water rescue equipment here in town for urban water rescue.”

Taylor explained that after a series of hurricanes over the past decade, many first responders in the state have reaped the material benefits of boat grants but still lack the resources needed for extended training sessions.

“We were not properly trained so this was a priority to build a facility to get our first responders properly trained in swift water,” he added. “The aircraft rescue is completed, and we will start additional training. We did some training so far, but it is live now as of today, and we’re pulling in folks from around the state for their FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) annual certifications.”

Following his informational briefing, Taylor asked the Albemarle City Council if it could sign off on a waiver fee for over $16,000 for five million gallons of water to get the water rescue facility “up and operational.” Councilmembers voted 7-0 in favor of upholding the OSFM’s request.

The Albemarle City Council is set to hold its next regular meeting on July 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers.