The addition is up, with all four walls and the roof complete. The concrete floor inside is also complete.

Doyle Construction, of Fort Dodge, was the general contractor for the first phase of the project.

Fire Chief John Colshan said getting bids for spray foam insulation and wiring will be the next step.

The building addition will be completed in stages over the course of two or three city government fiscal years. Doing it that way enables the city to use tax revenue to pay for it instead of borrowing money through a bond issue, according to Colshan.

The current fire station was built in about 1975. It has four truck bays, which house five trucks.

Colshan said today’s fire trucks are 32 to 36 feet long.

“We just ran out of room,” he said.

When the new addition is completed, each truck will have its own garage bay.

One of the bays in the new building will house an ambulance. Colshan said Calhoun County Emergency Medical Service keeps an ambulance in Manson from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. He said it usually sits outside the fire station and the crew uses the Fire Department’s meeting room inside.

Colshan said the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency will keep a trailer loaded with disaster response supplies in the new addition.

Even with vehicles and trailers in the building, there will be space for indoor training, according to Colshan. He mentioned two specific kinds of training: practicing going in and out of an upper story window in full firefighter gear, and vehicle extrication, which is the process of prying apart wrecked vehicles to free trapped people.

The fire station at Twin Lakes, which is jointly operated by the Manson and Rockwell City fire departments, will remain open after the new addition is in use.