Marine base awards bid for $5.5 million sprinkler system

YERMO • Three warehouses at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow will soon be getting new sprinkler systems to the tune of $5.5 million.

The bid was awarded to Sacramento-based company Pro-Tech Fire Protection Systems Corp. and Conesco, Inc.

While the warehouses at the maintenance yard in Yermo — numbers 401, 402 and 406 — currently have sprinklers, the new system will allow for more water to flow through the sprinkler heads if the system is activated, according to Terry Jenkins, assistant chief of fire prevention for the Marine Corps Logistics Base Fire Department.

“The warehouses needed to be brought up to a higher standard at this time,” said Jenkins.

The project was originally projected to cost $3.5 million, but ended up higher than estimated, according to Rob Jackson, MCLB spokesman.

The upgrade project on the three 170,000-square-foot warehouses should be completed by March 2011, Jackson said.

There are six total warehouses — the contents of which Jenkins declined to disclose — at the maintenance yard, but the new sprinkler system will only be installed in half of them due to a lack of funding for the other three, he said.

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