Orange Beach is preparing to take the next step on a public safety project that has been quietly taking shape behind Fire Station No. 1 at the city hall complex. The city council is considering a bid for a training tower, the centerpiece of a new facility that will serve both the fire department’s training program and the city’s surf rescue operations.
The Burn Tower
Fire Chief Jeff Smith is recommending that the council award the bid for a burn tower and its installation to Roy Lewis Construction for $1.3 million. The remaining portion of the center is expected to cost roughly $1 million, bringing the overall investment to something in the neighborhood of $2.3 million. Buildings that make up the first phase of construction are already underway.
A burn tower is a purpose-built structure in which firefighters train under live fire conditions. Crews practice search patterns in heavy smoke, advance hose lines up interior stairs, perform ventilation, and rehearse rescues of downed colleagues, all in a controlled environment engineered to be set alight repeatedly. Without one, departments must either travel to a regional facility or simulate conditions that cannot really be simulated. Having a tower on site means training can happen on a normal shift rather than as a special expedition.
More Than a Training Building
Chief Smith has been clear that the name undersells the project. “While we are calling it a training facility, it will house both training and surf rescue,” he said when the bid for the buildings was awarded.
The facility is also a response to a space problem that has been building for years. “We have outgrown our administration building and currently have 13 employees with only eight offices,” Smith said. “Surf Rescue is housed with Coastal Resources, and both have outgrown that facility, too. So, this building will have office space for both divisions, which will allow more room for us in administration, as well as Coastal Resources.”
The finished center is expected to include:
- Office space for the surf rescue and coastal resources divisions
- Dedicated storage for surf rescue equipment
- A training room roughly twice the size of the current one
- A gym for staff at Fire Station No. 1
- Room for future growth within Station 1
For a beachfront city whose lifeguards are on the front line of one of the deadliest hazards on the Gulf Coast, consolidating surf rescue into a proper facility is not a minor housekeeping matter.
The Rest of a Long Agenda
The council took up the tower bid during a joint regular and work session, and the tower was far from the only item. Among the matters before the council in the regular session:
- Payment of approximately $1.2 million to vendors for goods and services
- A special events liquor license tied to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2026 summer meeting at the Orange Beach Event Center, July 29 through 31
- A longevity bonus for city retirees, authorized by the Legislature in its 2026 session at $12 per year of service. Funded with city money, the bonus would total an estimated $25,394 for all retirees; an employee with 25 years of service would receive $300. A similar proposal was voted down in 2022.
- Adoption of a revised personnel policy manual
- A laboratory services agreement with South Baldwin Regional Medical Center
- A $14,000 contract for leadership training for the police department
- A grant agreement with the National Audubon Society for stewardship of coastal Alabama beach-nesting bird habitat
- A $5,570 contract for geotechnical exploration and engineering services for a new building at the Aquatic Center
- Architectural and engineering services for a safe room for first responders
- A public hearing and first reading on perimeter landscaping for the Lost Bay Townhouses south of Canal Road
- A first reading of an ordinance reducing speed limits on certain streets in the Lauder Place Subdivision
Work Session Items
The work session agenda carried its own list of consequential items, including a $50,000 local match toward a $1 million grant from the Government Recovery Infrastructure Program to raise Jubilee Point Road, a chronic flooding concern; a $10,000 appropriation to the Baldwin County Child Advocacy Center; a resolution assigning Orange Beach police officers to the Baldwin County Drug Task Force; the purchase of two utility vehicles for the police department for $44,853 to replace units that have been in service nine years; taxi franchise requests; adoption of a city seal guide; a bid for a new work skiff for Coastal Resources; and the city’s participation in a lawsuit joined by other small governments over the alleged overpricing of fire department equipment and vehicles.
Taken together, the agenda is a fair snapshot of what running a small coastal city actually involves: a seven-figure training tower on one line, a retiring K-9’s worth of housekeeping on the next, and a flood-prone road that will cost a million dollars to raise.
Training Where It Matters Most
The burn tower is more than a line item. For the Orange Beach Fire Department, live-fire training is the difference between a crew that has read about a rescue and one that has performed it under heat and smoke. Departments without a tower of their own must send crews to regional facilities, losing valuable shift time to travel and scheduling around another agency’s calendar. A tower on site, behind Station 1, puts that training within steps of the apparatus bay.
The surf rescue component reflects the particular character of Orange Beach, a city whose identity and economy are bound to the water. Its lifeguards and coastal resources staff protect both residents and the millions of visitors who fill the beaches each year, and consolidating that division into a dedicated facility acknowledges the scale of the task. As the center rises behind city hall, it stands as a concrete investment in the safety of a community that lives, works and plays at the edge of the Gulf.
The breadth of the council’s agenda also illustrates the balancing act facing Orange Beach. A resort city of its size must simultaneously invest in public safety, manage seasonal event logistics, protect coastal habitat and maintain its infrastructure, often within the same meeting. The $2.3 million training and surf rescue center is the largest single commitment on the agenda, but items like the Jubilee Point Road raise and the beach-nesting bird stewardship reflect the same underlying reality: a coastal community’s quality of life depends on decisions large and small being made well, one session at a time.
Residents who want to follow the project can attend council meetings at the city hall complex or review the published agenda materials. As the burn tower and its companion buildings take shape behind Fire Station No. 1, they will serve Orange Beach firefighters and surf rescue crews for decades, a lasting return on the $2.3 million the council is now considering.