National Fire Academy to Purchase College Campus in Emmitsburg, Md.
photos by John Peige.
Negotiations are under way to purchase St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg, Md., for the permanent site of the National Fire Academy (NFA).
Joseph A. Moreland, acting administrator of the United States Fire Administration (USFA), who approved the academy site selection, commented, “The National Fire Academy staff can move into the college and begin offering courses on-site sometime this year to both paid and volunteer fire service personnel, as well as to those in other disciplines involved with fire prevention and control activities.”
Approved by Vickery
The site choice also has the approval of Gordon E. Vickery, nominated by President Carter to become administrator of the USFA.
“Now the academy can really energize its programs,” Vickery declared. “This site will support the immediate and long-term objectives of the National Fire Academy.”
Purchase of the 110-acre campus with 14 buildings was necessitated by congressional rejection of the Marjorie Webster Junior College campus in Washington, D.C. The 8.5-acre Webster campus, 40 percent of it covered by buildings and paving, was bought two years ago for $2.6 million.
In appropriating $6.15 million last year to give the academy a permanent home, Congress called for the selection of a new site because the Marjorie Webster campus offered no room for NFA growth. At the same time, the appropriation bill allowed the proceeds from the future sale of the Webster site to be added to the $6.15 million appropriation.
Recommendations reviewed
The site selection board which chose Marjorie Webster rated St. Joseph College as its second choice. So when congressional action made it imperative to quickly select an alternative to the Webster campus, St. Joseph College was an obvious candidate. A review of the site selection board’s recommendations showed that St. Joseph College would have been the board’s first choice in 1976 except that it was available then_ only under a lease. In addition, the site would have had to be shared with the owners, the Sisters of Charity, a Roman Catholic order which founded the college in 1910, and there was a desire to place all USFA operations in the academy location.
All these impediments have now ceased to exist, and the immediate availability of St. Joseph College, which closed in 1973, became an advantage in developing the NFA program, which this year is being presented in four cities, San Francisco, New Haven, Atlanta and Minneapolis.
The USFA is scheduled to become part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency by April 1, and it is possible that one or more other administrations in the new agency may locate activities at the NFA site.
