Firefighters hold last funding drive for rescue truck

A fire department in the Rural Municipality of Wallace-Woodworth is making its last fundraising push for a new rescue unit estimated to cost $110,000.

Community fundraising efforts are off to a “fantastic” start after tickets for the Woodworth Fire Department’s “Fired up Fundraiser” sold out within three hours on Feb. 1, said fire Chief Chris Routledge.

The aim is to raise up to $20,000 toward updating its aging piece of equipment.

“This community is amazing for supporting us and what we do here,” said Routledge, who’s worked as the fire chief for about 10 years.

The event takes place on Saturday at the Kenton Memorial Hall in Kenton — located about 50 kilometres west of Brandon — and includes supper, a silent auction and entertainment.

Routledge said the current 36-year-old rescue truck is “starting to show its age,” so the fire department plans to remove the existing aluminum box and transfer it over to a new truck.

“This way it’ll give us a four-wheel drive and a newer power unit underneath it,” he said.

The fire department has been using the 1990 rescue unit for about seven years after purchasing it from the Moosomin Fire Department in Saskatchewan through a $25,000 Manitoba Fire Protection grant, Routledge said.

He expects the fire department will raise a total of $55,000 after the upcoming event combined with previous fundraising efforts.

The rural municipality will match those funds to cover the remaining amount, he said.

The goal is to have the new rescue unit serving the community of Kenton and surrounding areas such as Lenore and Harding in June, Routledge said.

A rescue unit serves many purposes and can be described as a “tool cabinet on wheels,” he said.

The truck holds the fire department’s vehicle extrication equipment, water rescue wetsuits, first aid equipment and six air packs.

The vehicle also operates as a mobile command unit, Routledge said.

“If we have an incident on a bad weather day, you can stay inside and do your paperwork or you run your scene from in there,” he said.

“Or if we come upon an accident and there’s victims out on the road that have nowhere to be in the wintertime until the ambulance gets there, we put them in there to keep them warm and do our first aid.”

The Woodworth Fire Department has 18 volunteer firefighters who are on call 24-7 and five high school students who are 16 years and older in their junior program. These students learn firefighting skills that can go toward their school credits for graduation after they complete a certain number of volunteer hours.

The department operates a rescue unit, pumper fire truck, tanker and a brush truck. Routledge said their next biggest fundraising challenges involve replacing their aging extrication equipment, which costs around $70,000, and their pumper.

“Our front-line pumper runs out of service in 2033 because those trucks have to be replaced after every 20 years, and a replacement cost on the current pumper we have is $885,000,” he said.

“It’s a mountain to climb.”

He has priced out a new pumper truck for the last three years and every year, the price tag increases by 10 to 15 per cent. By 2033, he projects the cost will be more than $1 million.

Routledge said many rural fire departments try to do their own community fundraising to decrease spending in their municipal budget.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com