The Salmon Valley Volunteer Fire Department has purchased a new tender and in addition to using it to fight fires, it's also hoping to use it as a way to attract new firefighters.
The public is invited to get a look at the vehicle this Tuesday during the department's practice night, which starts at 7 p.m. And, if they're interested, they're also welcome to sign up to be a volunteer.
Membership at Salmon Valley VFD currently stands at 15 and chief Cory Davoren would like to see that number up around 25. Other volunteer fire departments also need recruits, he added.
"It's getting harder and harder to get members and they're crucial for us to stay alive," he said.
Areas without fire protection pay significantly more in home insurance.
At minimum, volunteers train once a week for two hours at a time in addition to answering calls. The more dedicated will participate in weekend training or additional weeknight sessions, Davoren said.
Volunteer fire departments can act as a stepping stone to a career in a bigger centre.
"We pretty much train you up to the basic firefighter package," Davoren said. "You can get the hands-on experience."
The HUB-built tender, of which the department took delivery this week, carries 1,500 gallons of water, 300 gallons more than the one it's replacing.
It also carries a monitor that allows firefighters to extinguish roadside grassfires from inside the cab. "So our initial attack is within seconds," Davoren said. "We can stop it from spreading to the bush."
Under standards set out by the insurance industry, Salmon Valley VFD is required to have a front-line engine and a front-line tender and neither can be older than 30 years. It's for that reason the department purchased the new tender as well as a new engine in 2009.
The old tender, purchased in 1993, will remain in the fleet, allowing the department to "roll two tenders to a fire," Davoren said.
Because there are no fire hydrants in the community, Davoren said the department will continue to rely heavily on tender shuttles.
"Our front-line engine will go to a fire and we'll set up a bladder and then that will act as our hydrant," Davoren said. "What our tenders will do is they'll come and dump out their water [into the bladder] and go back to the hall to fill up and back and forth until the fire's out."
A tender's contents can be drained in as little as two minutes and at the Salmon Valley fire hall they take about five minutes to fill up.
The old tender will also act as a "mutual aid" vehicle to help with fires outside the Salmon Valley jurisdiction. Davoren said the department does a lot of work with Pilot Mountain, Ness Lake and Beaverly.
The tender cost about $300,000 and was paid for in cash. "We've been budgeting for this truck for the last 25 years," Davoren said.
A rescue pickup truck rounds out the fleet.
