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Canfield, Green and Ellsworth fire crews practice commercial building techniques
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
Local firefighters got the rare chance Monday night to practice techniques on a commercial building.
The Cardinal Joint Fire District, along with the fire departments of Ellsworth and Green townships, worked on the Arby’s building, 13 Talsman Drive, on U.S. Route 224.
Canfield fire Chief Don Hutchison said the plan was to get the ladders on the roof, work on how to ventilate a commercial roof, search and rescue with thermal cameras as well as finding hidden spots in the siding.
“We don’t get many commercial-building fires in Canfield, and we contacted Ellsworth and Green, neighboring departments that don’t get many commercial fires, either,” Hutchison explained.
CJFD trained on two houses before they were torn down for the new library in Canfield in October. Hutchison couldn’t recall his department having an opportunity to train on a commercial building before it was torn down.
The Arby’s has been closed since early March for construction to revamp the 1983 building, as the food chain nationwide has remade some area restaurants as well. For example, the Arby’s in Austintown near Mahoning Avenue and Raccoon Road underwent a similar renovation last year.
“We’ve done it a couple times when we’ve bought older structures,” said Alan Setz, chief financial officer of Niles Restaurant Business Group. “Seems the right thing to do when moving into a new neighborhood,” he said of donating the building for fire use before demolition.
Setz said his group bought the building about a year ago and were looking at reconstruction during the next few years. Once the reconstruction of the U.S. Route 224 bridge over state Route 11 project began, however, they moved up their own construction.
“We didn’t want to go where our business was hurt by [road] construction and then close it down again” for building construction, Setz explained.
He expects the construction of Arby’s to last about four months.