Provincial funding for Ste Anne, Reynolds upgrades equipment, expands space

Fresh provincial funding for fire hall improvements and new firefighting equipment will be flowing to the Rural Municipalities of Ste Anne and Reynolds.

Manitoba announced $11.4 million in funding to help 22 municipal projects under the Growth, Renewal and Opportunities for Municipalities program, with Ste Anne receiving $1.7 million and Reynolds getting $315,000.

Ste Anne Reeve Richard Pelletier welcomed the financial boost and said the fire department needs to upgrade it’s equipment.

“We’re quite thankful to see that the province takes fire and rescue so seriously, and are helping rural municipalities like us be up to date and be proactive,” he told The Carillon.

Since Ste Anne is located along the Trans-Canada Highway, Pelletier said its become a hot-spot for accidents and made firefighting upgrades more urgent.

One of the slated projects is improving the fire department’s water supply because the current system takes too long to fill up the responding trucks, Pelletier said. The funding will also be used to bring the fire hall up to code and purchase new emergency vehicles, such as tanker trucks. Rural municipalities have three years to spend the money.

“We need to protect our people, and there’s always accidents and fires. So we want to make sure we have the proper tools nowadays to really be serving our population and give a good service,” he said.

Ste Anne often works together with the Town of Ste Anne when responding to emergencies, and the upgrades will be benefit both communities, Pelletier said.

Reynolds also borders the Trans-Canada Highway and recovering costs from emergency response has been difficult to manage, said Reeve Russ Gawluk.

The new funding will add two new bays to the fire hall for vehicles and expand the training area, he said. The fire department will purchases a new battery-powered Jaws of Life unit, which will replace the previous version that uses an air compressor.

“It keeps it at least as efficient as is now and allows for a greater efficiency in the future because (we can) possibly spread tools out a little better, whether it’s the firefighters gear or the apparatuses that they use,” Gawluk said.

Building the two new bays will allow Reynolds to potentially purchase more fire trucks if needed, instead of turning that opportunity down because there wasn’t space before, he said.

Groundbreaking for the fire hall expansion is expected in the summer, Gawluk noted.

Reynolds Fire Chief Don McDougall said the fire hall expansion and renovations are needed because staff can’t park the necessary equipment on site. The fire hall currently has three trucks parked in its existing bays, but its off-road side-by-side vehicle for wildfire and bush emergency response is kept at a garage five minutes away from the rest of the equipment. That extra distance makes response times longer and having it on the same site will shorten those times, he said

“We have to get the keys for the garage, go to the location, hook it up and then respond,” he said. “This way it’ll be a lot faster.”

He said the fire hall will get four new vehicle extrication tools and will require less time to set-up compared to the previous gas-powered version.

McDougall is excited to see the funding expand the fire department’s training area so more people can train at once.