Fort Frances Fire Dept. offers to assist Rainy River and other area towns

By Ken Johnston
Editor

Rainy River town council held its regular monthly meeting last Monday evening, starting with an offer of services from the Fort Frances Fire Department.
Fort Frances Fire Chief Gerry Armstrong and their Chief of Operations for Fire and Rescue presented council with a proposal to share some administrative services. Armstrong noted that the Fort dept. has purchased a $15,000 computer program that makes record keeping and inventory controls very easy for them. They noted that with changing labour codes in Ontario the need for such records is going to become a necessity. The program keeps track of incident reports as well as things like when a piece of equipment must be inspected.
Armstrong and Shepherd offered to share the program’s benefits with Rainy River and has made similar offers to all other area fire depts. While the cost for the retainer fee on the offer was about $3,000 both men said that figure is negotiable depending upon what services a community signs up for.
The also offered to provide training to area depts. Mandatory fire fighting curriculum is now available and the Rainy River Fire Dept. is already gearing up to put its members through it. Armstrong and Shepherd said that whether Rainy River inks a deal on the computer program or not, they want to still offer the training which will not cost the local dept. any money, just its time.
The noted that there are so many changes coming down from the province that all depts. need to work together to survive. One such change will be mandatory hotel inspections by fire depts. For which proper records will need to be kept, hence the benefit of the software.
Another change Shepherd said is in the works is a code that says for a single dwelling fire at least 18 firefighters need to be on the scene. Rainy River’s full compliment of firefighters is less than that at present. Fire Chief Stewart McNally said they have between 10-14 regulars that belong to the dept. Shepherd said that the number that attended will have to be recorded for future use if so needed. “We can add you to our system through the retainer.”
Fort could also do some of the maintenance on local radio/pager systems. They also feel as a larger group they could get greater buying power with service companies on things like air packs. They also have enough air packs to rotate some into RR when they have to leave to be serviced, thus never leaving the community unprotected.
Fort Frances is also looking at a way to take over the area 911 dispatch again, but offered few details to council at this time. “The retainer fee might not look bad if the dispatch fee (you pay) is cut in half, but we can’t guarantee anything at this time,” said Armstrong.
Rainy River council did not make a decision last Monday and at that time no other area communities had committed to it. However, Chief McNally said that he had heard that a few are seriously looking at joining forces with Fort Frances.
Other Business
•Councillor Gord Armstrong reported that the recreation board is actively looking at ways to lower the arena lights.
•Council approved medical benefits for Town Coordinator Anthony Mason and awarded him a $50 per month in town travel allowance.
•Council approved a contract with Asselin Transportation and Storage Ltd. to provide recycling pick up in Rainy River for a fee of $900 per month. The recycling bins will be located at the Town Garage on Sixth St. and Asselin will pick it up routinely. Councillor Brent Anderson said that the program will cover about 90% of what people are throwing away.
•Council passed a motion to give the Rec. Bd., Fire Dept. and Library Bd. $150 to pay for Christmas festivities.
•Council unanimously appointed councillor Marilyn McAlister as Deputy Mayor for 2008. Mayor Deb Ewald said that she plans to rotate the position every year. Last year Councillor Gerry Marchuk held the post and had to run meetings while the Mayor was off due to illness for a few months.