St. Clair College now has its own fire station.
The college purchased the former city fire station No. 5 on Cabana Road West in Windsor earlier this year and will use it for the Pre-Service Firefighter program.
The two-bay fire station was home to Windsor Fire and Rescue for more than 30 years but shut down in 2014 and relocated to Northwood Street near Huron Church Road.
The college says students and instructors are already seeing the advantages of training and performing lab work at the station.
Waseem Habash, Vice President Academics at St. Clair College, says they paid around $500,000 for the building and the property, and also spent $500,000 to renovate the site.
He says the instructors were really excited to get into the site.
"It is so beneficial to students, they're in a real world environment in a fire hall. Whatever the exercise they're doing, they're able to do it in a relatively real situation," says Habash. "To be able to go up and down ladders, where the fire trucks are going to get stored, etc. All their equipment and tools are in the same spot. So it feels like a natural environment of being in a fire hall for students and that's what it's all about."
Windsor fire chief Stephen Laforet said in a release, "anytime a Pre-Service program can mimic or replicate the experience of a real working fire hall, the better it will be for the students."
The site will now be known as the St. Clair Fire Station.