Wenatchee Valley Fire Department To Re-Open Malaga Station
The Wenatchee Valley Fire Department (WVFD) will reopen its fire station in Malaga later this year.
The WVFD's Station 17 Complex at 3760 West Malaga Road has been unstaffed since 2020, following the closure of the nearby Alcoa Wenatchee Works plant.
"Alcoa had provided half the funding for the Malaga station," says WVFD Fire Chief Brian Brett. "After it closed, we built a new station in Squilchuck. Although it's five miles away from Malaga, it's still closer than any other station. The call volumes we get don't warrant staffing Malaga, but we're looking at very hefty fire insurance premiums for a lot of folks out there if we don't get it re-staffed, so that's what we're doing. The greatest good for the greatest number of people was to get this staffed so they could continue paying their insurance premiums as-is."
The increasing frequency of wildfires throughout North Central Washington has driven homeowner premiums significantly higher in recent years, and Brett says those hikes are expected to be upwards of $7,000 annually for 997 parcels in the Malaga area by this fall if the station doesn't reopen.
Brett says Station 17 is in need of numerous upgrades before it can be put back into use.
"We're going to need to invest one million to one-and-a-half million dollars in renovations. The building is over thirty years old and it needs some help before we can fully staff it."
About $500,000 of the renovation costs are coming from a state grant, with the remainder being provided through the Fire Department's budget.
In addition, Brett says staffing the station is expected to cost about $1.5 million annually.
"We'll have three people per shift there with a minimum of two firefighters on staff, twenty-four seven. They can be supplemented by volunteers. We've got to send them to the fire academy, outfit them with gear, and pay their wages and benefits, so it's going to cost about a half-a-million dollars a year to do all of that."
Funding to pay for staffing at the Malaga station will be provided in part by Microsoft, whose new data centers in the area will be located only a few miles away.
Brett says the tech giant is paying for 33% of the station's staffing costs over the next three years, beginning immediately.
"Microsoft is self-insured, so they weren't going to be impacted by the exponential insurance premium increases that are expected for the Malaga area. So it's a purely philanthropic move on their part. However, they also wanted to make sure that the people who were working on constructing the data centers, as well as the community of Malaga, had an increased level of service due to their presence there."
In all, Microsoft is paying $1.5 million to cover staffing at the Malaga station over 36 months once it reopens on Sept. 1.
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