A provincewide grant program for firefighting upgrades will bring some money to the Lakes District.
Among the 110 volunteer and composite (combination career-volunteer staffing) fire departments who shared in the $6.3-million from the Ministry of Emergency Management & Climate Readiness, the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako (RDBN) received just shy of $100,000.
While many fire departments applied individually for funding through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, the RDBN took the step of applying on behalf of a number of departments under the Regional District umbrella, and it worked.
“RDBN submitted a regional application on behalf of the four rural volunteer fire departments: Southside, Topley, Fort Fraser, and Cluculz Lake,” said Jason Blackwell, the RDBN’s fire service coordinator. They will share in the $99,582 coming in from this investment.
”This funding will fund training and equipment for the departments,” Blackwell said. “The RDBN collaborated with each of the rural fire departments to determine the needs, and external training was a high priority. Due to limited budgets and high costs to send individuals away for training, we identified a few key courses and will bring in instructors to facilitate locally. Both online and face to face courses will be provided.”
Some of the courses that will be taken include Incident Command, Fire Service Instructor, Wildland, Driver training, and First Responder Mental Health, among others.
That will build the human capacity for the region, but there is hardware capacity also built into this funding.
“Some necessary equipment that could not normally be purchased due to budget restraints will also be acquired such as wildland response, communications, firefighting foam, water delivery, and training props, represent some of the equipment that will be purchased,” said Blackwell. “The rural fire departments of the RDBN are grateful for this grant opportunity as it allows access to necessary training and equipment that they would not normally be able to acquire.”