Budget allocations, development for Onefour fire department

By Carlie Connolly

In the Aug. 19, council meeting in Cypress County, Kevin Miner, the chief administrative officer gave out the budget projection of the Onefour fire department. It was determined a few weeks ago that they would need quite a lot of equipment and training for the volunteer fire fighters that would be a part of this new fire department.

The short-term costs estimated from the meeting were $56,900, which included the personal protective equipment (PPE), the communications like the radios, pagers and the tower, wildfire training and a temporary pumper replacement.

The medium to long-term costs include a couple of squat trucks for $100,000, a tanker water truck for $150,000, a building for $250,000, bunker gear for $50,000, extrication equipment for $30, 000, and MCR training at $20,000.

Council approved the first set of costs at $56,900. Up next to deal with is the $450,150 they will deal with at a later date with the new fire services committee. The goal at the meeting was to just have an estimate to see what it would all look like later.

With the upcoming fire department being developed shortly, Dustin Vossler said the department has all of their members on board with around 19 people so far. Around 15 of the 19 guys are all trained up and are now waiting for another training day towards the end of the month to get the rest of them trained. They are also working on getting their equipment to them. “Everything takes time. You can’t ever do nothing in a hurry when you want to,” Vossler said.

The group of guys were out fighting the big Onefour fire that occurred last week.

Vossler said, “They did a bang up job, they were there an easy 45 minutes before anyone else could get there. In a matter of speaking, time counts when you’re playing the fire game.”

They are hoping within the next month or so that the new fire department will be up and underway.

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