Norvelt opens new, spacious fire hall

It was moving day Sunday for the Norvelt Volunteer Fire Department, which transferred its firetrucks and equipment across Mt. Pleasant Road to the firefighters’ new $1 million home with room enough for all of its vehicles.

“We outgrew (the old fire hall),” said Norvelt fire Chief Matt Zelenak at the fire department’s open house. “The doors were narrow. Everything was pretty much shoehorned in … and we had to modify the building.”

The new fire hall is 7,500 square feet, compared to about 3,500 square feet in the former building, which Zelenak said the department will use for storage.

For the Mt. Pleasant Township department, one of five in the municipality, the new fire hall has been a long time coming. The need for a new fire hall had been discussed “since around 1992,” Zelenak said.

To build the hall and surrounding parking lot, the departmentobtained a loan through Somerset Trust, said Lee Speer, VFD president. The building and site preparation cost close to $1 million, he said.

“We did it without a government grant,” Speer said.

Some of the interior work was done by the firefighters to help save money, he said.

Zelenak credited the Norvelt community for supporting the department and making the new hall possible.

“Our community has shown us great support. This is the reason we can do this,” he said.

While the department has a new fire hall, it still faces the same challenges as other volunteer departments throughout the county.

“We need more firefighters. Our average age is pretty high,” said Zelenak, who has been the chief since 2012.

The department has about 30 active firefighters and 20 additional members, he said.

The Norvelt fire department’s history dates to the founding of the Westmoreland Homestead in 1934 that was named “Norvelt” for Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The men who lived in the new community knew they needed a fire department because the village was filled with wood-frame houses.

“They started out with a bucket brigade,” Speer said of the fledgling fire department.