At its Sept. 8 meeting, the Vashon Island Fire & Rescue board authorized spending $10,000 for a new roof and other repairs at the Firefighters’ Association Building.

Assistant Chief Bob Larsen surveyed the 1974 structure — which was given to Vashon Island Fire & Rescue earlier this year — and found the building in need of many repairs, including a roof, new paint, windows and gutters and the removal of an interior wall.

The Vashon Firefighters’ Association disbanded and donated its meeting building to the fire department this summer. Even after learning of the needed repairs, Fire Chief Hank Lipe said he’s grateful the one-story building was given to the fire department.

“So far, the cost of the repairs are nothing compared to the value of the building,” Lipe said. “It’s an asset to the district.”

The roof needed to be repaired immediately, he said, to ready it for the winter. Fire district staff began repairs last week.

“No matter what happens to the building, we need a good roof on it,” he said. “We’re replacing the roof and doing a few other repairs in an effort to get the building occupiable.”

The fire department doesn’t yet know how it will use the association building, which is a designated Red Cross emergency shelter and which is located next to the Penny Farcy Memorial Training Center and across the street from Fire Station 55.

Possibilities include moving the Island’s emergency operations center from its small room in Station 55 to the larger space across the street.

The fire board will hold a retreat Oct. 31 and plans to discuss the master plan for the Firefighters’ Association Building, Lipe said.

The other necessary repairs discovered in Larsen’s survey “are things that need to be done,” he said, but won’t be done until the board decides how the building should be used. Those items include an inspection of the heating system, removal of an interior wall and new carpeting and floor covering.

“I’m waiting on the board to see what they want to do,” Lipe said.