Firefighters from throughout Indiana County joined their counterparts and the townspeople of the Coal Run and McIntyre area Saturday to celebrate the completion of a new fire station for Station 290, the Coal Run/McIntyre Volunteer Fire Department.
The new five-bay garage covers 6,000 square feet, can shelter half a dozen or more trucks of moderate size and comfortably seat 450 guests for banquets and receptions. It’s fully equipped with a kitchen and a second-level entertainment center.
It also shares walkways with the fire department’s original station that stands barely 20 feet away, a firehouse that local leaders fashioned from a former coal company store dating to about a century ago.
And according to Dave Galinac, president of the fire company and a former fire chief, the structure went up in lightning-quick speed, by any standard, and came in with a price tag almost half of the original estimates.