Out with the old and in with the new at Marbury volunteer Fire Station 

Malia Riggs  

Elmore Autauga News 

The Marbury Fire Station will be getting a new facility, in the same location, by 2025, where Marbury Fire Chief Kenneth Barber and assistant Fire Chief Reed Brown are looking for additional volunteers as their new facility is being constructed.  

The former Marbury facility was yet another tragedy in the destructive tornado of January 2023. However, through insurance and taxpayer dollars, Marbury will be seeing construction starting soon for a new Fire Station.  

“Our neighboring departments have stepped up and helped us, but we’ve started getting to a point where me as a chief, I’ve been the chief for over 20 years, I felt a little bashful and terrible. I know this was an act of God and that we couldn’t control, but here we are having to get help from other departments when we serve the people of our community and we weren’t able to do it to the best of our ability,” Barber said.  

Currently, Marbury Water is housing trucks and other equipment for the volunteer-based station. Before they graciously let the station park their vehicles, they were housed five miles out of city limits, Barber confirmed.  

“We’ve gone through a lot of hurdles, having to go five miles out of the area and five miles back. It was a rough go for a while. We serve hundreds of people within Autauga County and it’s important to have these services readily available,” Barber said.  

Barber has been the fire chief for Marbury for over 20 years and was a part of the department when the previous facility was built in 1998.  

“It’s just exciting that we’ll have something new, and something to show off to the community. A new facility that the community can come visit, and really see where their tax dollars are being used. We can show off and say we are stewards of your money, and this is what we are providing for you,” Barber said.  

Barber stated that he’s learned a lot over the years, and that he’s excited to implement modern practices into this new facility that is being torn down this week.  

“Even though the new station has the same footprint, we have reorganized the layout and are utilizing the space differently. This gives us upgraded restroom facilities with showers, a much larger classroom area, a large upstairs area we can use for station training, and recreation, a staircase that we can train on, 2 extra truck bays over what we had previously and truck bay upgrades that will help us to operate more smoothly,” Brown said.  

The department does all their training in house and has two certified instructors through the Alabama State Fire College, where they teach courses to this very station’s volunteers. Barber stated, for someone wanting to pursue a career in fire, they would need very little training after moving on from their facility.  

However, Barber confirmed that volunteers are hard to come by these days even though volunteer responders outnumber career departments 10-1 in the U.S.  

“It’s starting to become a trend where people just don’t want to participate. One of our neighboring county’s just recently had to have our assistance for an RV fire, and that county tried four to five close-by departments before they even called us. The RV was just about burnt up by the time we even got there. That’s some of the trends we’re dealing with. We’re fortunate here in Autauga County, where if it was a major fire, like a house fire, it used to be that the district that that fire is in, that department and 2 others would help. Now there’s four to five or sometimes six departments called just to be able to handle the situation,” Barber said.  

The department meets on Monday nights at 7 p.m. for additional training and refreshers for the week and to stay up to date. When the 6300 square foot facility is completed, meetings will be held there. For more information Chief Barber can be reached at 334-850-4172 or at [email protected].

“My personal vision for our new station was to make sure that the new station didn’t just continue to serve our needs now but would also be serviceable and capable 25 to 30 years from now. I believe we have accomplished that and that this new station will be one our community can embrace and be proud of,” Brown said.