Twin Falls moves forward with plans to update fire stations

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The city of Twin Falls has been looking to update its fire stations for six years, but has had some hurdles along the way.

When the fire station bond failed in 2019, they had to regroup and decide how to move forward from there.

“We found an alternative funding source, and we reduced the scope a little bit, so we are building a station 2 and a station 3 and then the training center is a separate funding source from a grant,” said fire chief Les Kenworthy.

Fire station 2 will be built off of North College and Fire Station 3 will be built off of Washington St. S using city funds.

The first priority is a new training center for firefighters of the entire Magic Valley. The training center will be behind the Twin Falls Animal Shelter.

“We’re going to start with a facility that is hopefully about four stories, that will allow us to do live fire training and the big thing we will get from this is we are going to try and push this regionally,” said Josh Kliegl, the training officer for the department. “So all our surrounding departments can come train, so when we have big incidents, we work together, and know how we work together.”

With the addition of the new facilities, it will help the department lower response time and adjust to the growth of the area.

“They are really outdated, they were built in the 60′s and early 70′s they haven’t kept up with technology needs for personnel,” said Kenworthy. “For example, we don’t have facilities for female firefighters, our apparatus bays are too small, we have an apparatus that sits outside, which is really problematic from a response capability.”

They have chosen an architect and contractors for the projects and hope to begin construction on the training center this summer.

“Right down to our response times, every day training that we need to check off for the year, it will give us a place to go do it, and the stations will be safer and easier to get out of, it’s going to be good,” said Kliegl.

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