A volunteer group in Moyie is looking to build a fire hall in the community.
Efforts to build a fire hall in the community have been in the works for a number of years.
“We had some total loss fires of residences about 15 years ago. So, some of the citizens got together and said we should do something,” said volunteer Murray Evason. “We’ve been working on this for quite a while and we established an emergency response group. Now we’re just looking for some training accreditation and our goal is the fire hall so we can store equipment and provide year-round service.”
Evason said they already have some equipment and are in the process of training firefighters.
“We have two emergency response vehicles and five firefighters in training at the College of the Rockies. We have people, we have vehicles, but we need a space to put it. We’re working on funding and acquiring a piece of Crown land to build a fire hall,” explained Evason.
According to Evason, a portion of Crown land will be given to the community for free on a 30-year lease if they use it for a fire hall.
A number of skilled people are part of the group effort to get the building constructed.
“We have two retired firefighters within our group, we have expertise with truck drivers, first aiders, we also have a federal safety officer who is retired. We do have some talent within our group, but we do have our limitations, so we went to the college,” said Evason.
When the group asked for help, Evason said the college developed an online firefighter training program.
Once work is underway, the group will look for help from the community.
“We have some local talent, we also have some people who have summer residences there who have stepped up to say they would help out. Mostly it’s going to be volunteer labour, but outside of our skill set, we will hire local,” explained Evason.
A barbecue was held on Saturday afternoon that raised $1,500 to put towards the building.