Rocky View County (RVC) council has finalized their agreement with RockPointe Church, acquiring four acres of land to construct the Bearspaw Emergency Services Centre.
“We are very happy to move forward with the emergency services facility,” said RVC fire Chief Ken McMullen. “Now that we have certainty regarding the location of the station, we can now begin construction and plan to provide an enhanced level of emergency services for the community.”
The timing of the announcement could not have been better, with the current agreement with the City of Calgary to provide primary fire services to the Bearspaw community set to expire on July 1, 2013.
Cochrane’s Inter-national Association of Fire Fighters’ (IAFF) president Jared Wallace said he is excited to see the new fire hall being constructed in what he called ‘the historically under-served area of Bearspaw,’ adding that he hopes the new facility will be adequately staffed to ensure prompt response times.
“New fire halls and new fire trucks don’t put out fires,” he said, “it’s the firefighters in the back of the truck who make the difference, and we feel the best way to achieve that is to place the appropriate number of properly trained and experienced firefighters in the trucks.”
Jeff Cragg, IAFF president for RVC, said he believes the new department will follow the same staffing system as the Springbank fire hall does, with what is called a composite model, where both full and part-time firefighters are employed on a casual basis. Many departments utilize what is known as paid-call response; a system Wallace believes increases response times, is inconsistent and unreliable.
Cragg echoed Wallace’s sentiment, indicating that the volunteer-based system can bloat response times anywhere from seven to 10 minutes. Wallace said the new hall in Bearspaw would have no direct impact on Cochrane firefighters with regards to how and where they respond to emergencies.
Preliminary work has begun at RockPointe Church, and RVC anticipates construction to begin on the new emergency services facility by the end of the year, with completion approximately 15 months later.
Project updates will soon be available on the county’s website at rockyview.ca.
