With the Pelham Fire Station left with only two working bay doors after a motorist rammed the fire house last month, Chief James Midgley is worried the situation is just a glimpse of what is to come. Midgely has had to juggle how emergency vehicles are parked to deal with only having two working front doors out of four since the Sept. 20 accident.

It’s a preview of the future, said Midgely, because if state and local officials redesign roads in the town center as a roundabout, as has been discussed, that would eliminate three bay doors at the fire department, making the temporary situation resulting from the accident permanent.

“If we have to shuffle trucks around, it’s a no-brainer,” he said. “It’s going to slow us down.”

Though Midgely had applied for funding for a new building with federal stimulus money, it does not look likely that the town will receive the aid, he said. Midgely now hopes to put a proposal for a $4.7 million fire station back before the voters in March. That same proposal failed at the ballot earlier this year.

According to Town Administrator Thomas Gaydos, selectman have yet to decide whether they will endorse the move. The board is preparing to take up the warrant article on Oct. 20.

Selectman Edmund Gleason said constructing a new fire house was a high priority for the community. The problems with the existing station, including inadequate storage and personnel space, will only get worse once work on the roadwork begins, according to Gleason.

“The frequency of calls have gone up,” he said. “It’s not something that we can neglect.”

One option to offset the impact of losing the bay doors would be to construct a three-bay out-building with enough space to house the department’s smaller vehicles, including two ambulances.

According to Midgely, some money has been set aside in the $39 million federal earmark funding the roundabout project to mitigate the impact to the station. Whether those funds will be used for an outbuilding remains to be seen, according to Gaydos.

Though the town has no timeline for when work on the roundabout project will begin, Gaydos said the state is preparing to move ahead pending approval from the Governor’s Council.

Initially against a new fire station, six-year resident Bruce Long said he had come around to the idea after watching the town grow up around him.

“(The station) is old, it’s too small and too cramped. The town is still growing, and I believe that the fire department tends to spend its money wisely. That’s the reason why I changed my mind,” he said. “I know its going to impact the tax rate, but still I firmly believe that it was one of the organizations that should be supported a little bit better.”