The city of Steamboat Springs has started a process intended to replace the Mountain Fire Station and lead to a more efficient, safe and productive facility on the southeast side of town.

“It is woefully inadequate and just doesn’t meet current standards,” Tom Leeson, Steamboat Springs city manager, said of the current facility. “There are safety issues and it’s too small, so we need a new station.”

Leeson said the city is in the process of launching an initial design phase, funded with $600,000 from the 2026 capital project budget, with the Steamboat Springs Area Fire Protection District also contributing to the costs of design and planning. The city is in the process of issuing a request for proposal, and Leeson thinks the design process will likely extend into 2027.

“We haven’t decided if it is a design build (company), or just an initial design for an architect to help us do both site and space planning and programming to get kind of a preliminary design. Then we’ll take that and start to get sort of a preliminary cost estimate,” Leeson said.

Once that cost has been established, and it is clear the project will meet needs, Leeson said the city will begin the process of finding ways to fund the capital improvement project. Chuck Cerasoli, the Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue chief, said replacing or updating the Mountain Station has been a part of the strategic plan for as long as he can remember. He said the topic was discussed when the city was in the process of building a new downtown fire station.

He said the original Mountain Fire Station was built in 1982, before being expanded and renovated starting in 2000 and then reopened in 2002. He believes the most cost-effective approach is to replace the structure completely.

During that time Steamboat Fire Rescue was also evolving from a volunteer department to one will full-time, paid staff members who needed quarters while on duty. Today the 9,700-square-foot building anchors the department’s mountain response and is home for five first responders per shift.

The station also offers three bays, including one that shelters a ladder truck, another that shelters two ambulances and a third bay that is usually home to a Type 1 engine with just enough room to squeeze a brush truck behind it.

Cerasoli describes the current situation as cramped and operationally inefficient. He said the facility lacks many of the recent technological advancements that firefighters need to do their jobs well and to stay safe.

“We had an engineer a while back that did our site analysis study. He came in to do an engineering perspective of the building and said that it would cost just as much, if not more, to try to bring the existing structure up to code than it would be to just to take it down and start new,” Cerasoli said.

The fire chief said that, currently, first responders on duty are faced with a number of operational challenges that impact their performance. For example, when a call comes in, crew members must navigate hallways and three flights of stairs just to get from their living space to the trucks.

“In an industry where response time is extremely important, it takes the firefighters a solid minute to a minute-and-a-half just to get out of the living space, down the stairs and to the apparatus,” Cerasoli said.

Once first responders reach the trucks and get rolling, there are more challenges — the trucks must make several turns along Pine Grove Road just to get to U.S. Highway 40. Cerasoli’s hope is that when the Mountain Station is replaced the building can be positioned in a way that allows emergency vehicles more direct U.S. 40 access and, as a result, quicker response times.

The current station also lacks a separate, negatively pressured area, where bunker gear can be stored outside the bays. Currently, gear the first responders wear, and the vehicles they drive, can be exposed to toxic or biological materials that can pose immediate or long-term health risks. Newer stations include technology and specific areas designed to offer protection from these risks.

Cerasoli also hopes a new station will offer a separate fitness area, so that crews will not have to do physical training on fitness equipment located in the back of one of the bays or the loft that overlooks the area. He is also hoping to double the number of bays at the Mountain Station from three to six, allowing wildland firefighting equipment currently stored in the Search & Rescue Barn on Yampa Street to be stored at the mountain location.

Steamboat Springs Fire Rescue is currently working to complete a strategic plan that will address what is needed in a new station.

“We knew that the Mountain Station needed to be addressed,” Cerasoli said. “It’s been in our strategic plan for a while, and we’ve done studies, and the focus is operational efficiency, employee safety in the buildings, and, obviously, serving the public as best we can. Those are the big things we’re focused on, and we don’t believe the current space achieves those goals.”