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Aaron Whelton is on fire … sort of. His firm, Whelton Architecture, landed two related projects in Portland: one for the renovation of Fire Station 21 and the other for a new firefighters鈥� memorial park.

Both projects are still in the design stages, the former after the bidding process used for design submission had to be re-evaluated and the latter after the recent confirmation of a $1 million budget built on donations and nonpublic sources.

The city of Portland passed a bond resolution in 2010 to upgrade all city fire stations. However, Fire Station 21 had been phased out of use and was dormant at the time. As a result, the circa-1961 building at the east foot of the Hawthorne Bridge was not included in the seismic upgrades covered by the bond.

City officials later decided to reactivate Fire Station 21 in order to reduce response time to water emergencies on the river. However, the station building rests on 30 feet of fill, which will require geological attention before the structure can be renovated.

鈥淭he project will be complex,鈥� Whelton said. 鈥淭he ground will have to be stabilized, which presents its own set of engineering problems, before any structural construction can begin.鈥�

In addition to housing a rescue engine, Fire Station 21 will serve as the docking location for a refurbished 1930s fireboat, the David Campbell, named in honor of the Portland fire chief who died in a conflagration in 1911.

Campbell, a popular figure in Portland at the time of his death, was the inspiration for a firefighters鈥� memorial also named for him in 1928 at Northwest 18th Avenue and Burnside Street. The site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places last June.

The Campbell Memorial sits on a triangular island in the middle of the street. But changes in the area over time, from heavy pedestrian and horse traffic to present-day vehicular traffic, means people rarely stop to view the plaque or the massive old fire bell that make up the memorial. In addition, the memorial had become weathered.

The David Campbell Memorial Association, created to pay for construction of the memorial, decided to supplement it with a newer memorial that would pay tribute to all of Portland鈥檚 fallen firefighters 鈥� 36 to date 鈥� in a venue where people would be more likely to see it.

The new Fallen Firefighters Memorial will be on the Eastbank Esplanade just north of Fire Station 21. Visible from Interstate 5 and city bridges, the memorial will command a sweeping view of the river and Fire Station 21鈥檚 docking facilities.

The memorial design, which recently won an award from the American Institute of Architects, incorporates a set of lanterns on fixed posts that Whelton said 鈥渨ill appear to merge and become brighter from different angles so that it becomes a defined place in the city.鈥�