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A $20,000 mold remediation process is set to begin this week at Bryan's Fire Station No. 3, while the facility's 21 employees temporarily will be housed in nearby trailers, officials said Monday.
The firefighters and emergency medical technicians who work at the station on Briarcrest Drive were evacuated Thursday after mold was discovered behind a shower wall.
Bryan's risk management department tested the mold and determined Monday that it was not airborne, so there aren't any health risks to employees. That also means it's OK to use the station's outdoor engine bays during the remediation period, which could last up to eight weeks, officials said.
While firefighters won't be able to work inside the building while the mold is being removed, it's important for them to be stationed there to provide quick response to the surrounding neighborhoods, Fire Chief Mike Donoho said Monday.
Station No. 3 averages about 15 to 25 calls per day, he said. Response times in the area average about five minutes, but have gone up to 10 minutes since the firefighters were moved last week to Station No. 1 on William Joel Bryan Parkway. The ambulances usually housed at the Briarcrest facility were moved to Station No. 4 on North Texas Avenue.
No individual's safety has been compromised since employees evacuated the station last week, Donoho said.
"We have had a minimal increase in response times, but the station locations are designed with overlaps," he said. "We're hoping to have the firefighters moved back to Briarcrest by the end of this week to ensure that response times are back in the three- to five-minute range."
The chief said he was unsure what it would cost to rent trailers and enable them with phone and computer access. An assistant chief was meeting with potential vendors Monday afternoon with plans to have the temporary facilities set up by the end of the week, Donoho said.
Mold was discovered at Fire Station No. 3 about two weeks ago when a cleaning crew noticed that mildew on the bottom of the shower wasn't getting clean no matter how hard they scrubbed, Donoho said.
"They asked our facility services people if they had anything stronger [to clean with]," he said. "When they came out, they opened the wall and found the source of the mold. It appears there was a drain pan under the shower that was never hooked up correctly."
The station was built in the 1970s.
Once the wall was opened, employees were evacuated to prevent exposure to the mold, Donoho said.
"What we determined is that as long as the mold was confined to the area behind the walls, there was limited human exposure," he said. "Once we opened it up, we disturbed the mold spores and they were released into the atmosphere. The advice from experts was to remove folks from the facility."
However, air quality test results came back Monday and showed that the two types of spores identified in the walls -- stachybotryis and chaetomium -- were isolated, said Howard Hart, a safety officer in Bryan's risk management department.
"That's very good news for us," he said. "It means there was some mold in the walls, but it's still in the walls. It's not in the air."
Remediation will cost about $20,000, said Hart, who is meeting Wednesday with Austin-based mold assessment consultant Dan Yates to determine a scope of work and timeline for the process.
"There's not an urgent issue, other than the public safety issue," he said. "What happened in the shower wall could be in your home or garage. It's just a case of wet conditions and lack of sunlight."
Hart added that samples taken last week in the engine bays showed the air there is comparable to "the air you'd breathe if you were standing outside."
• April Avison's e-mail address is april.avison@theeagle.com.
