Redwater firefighters respond to emergency calls in the wider Redwater area

By Irene van der Kloet

Fire departments are an essential element of emergency services in communities. Pat Mahoney, Sturgeon County Fire Chief, gives an insight into the working of the Redwater Volunteer Fire Department: “Every member is issued a radio, and they have a system on their cellphones called active 911. A page is sent out through the radio system and on their phone, and if they’re available, they’ll come to the hall. Some can leave work, and some aren’t. We encourage that they discuss it with their employer; some do, some don’t. Some people don’t work in Redwater, so they will not always be able to attend to a call”. The “volunteers” are paid for every call-out, so Pat would instead refer to them as “paid-on-call.” The current group of paid-on-calls is pretty steady; on average, they get five paid-on-calls on a call.

Redwater’s fire department is part of the greater Sturgeon County response services. “Let me take a minute to explain our structure. Several years ago, Sturgeon county emergency services took over the Redwater, Bon Accord, and Legal Fire Departments. We do all the operation and administration of that department, so the district of Redwater is part of Sturgeon county emergency services. We rely heavily on mutual aid amongst other departments, so the district of Bon Accord and Gibbons Fire Department come into Redwater to help and vice versa to attend the call. And we have certain protocols, for example, if there is a serious motor vehicle collision on highway 28, normally there is a two department response, so you have Redwater and Gibbons, or Bon Accord paged out”, Pat says. Pat has been county Fire Chief since 2011 and has been involved with the Town of Redwater since 2012 when they took over the administration and operation, and the support from the Town has always been excellent. When he first started, they had two to three calls per month, then it increased to two to three calls per week, and now it is two to three calls per day. As a cause for the increase, Pat points to an aging population, more medical calls, cardiac arrests and falls. There is a tremendous amount of volume on the highways. The demand on the paid-on-call members is very high, as Pat adds:” There were three residential structure fires in Redwater in 2021, much assistance to AHS or EMS, we had 38 of those, and we had many alarms, 22, and vehicle collisions 20.”

In Sturgeon County, in total, 2021 accounted for 1500 responses county-wide.

Everyone is busy these days, and it is tougher to get people to volunteer their time. There are full-time firefighters for Sturgeon County that complement the paid-on-calls. Currently, Sturgeon County has twelve people full-time, and there is a guaranteed response out of Bon Accord if there is a call in Redwater. Within the county, they rely heavily on the mutual aid portion.

Sturgeon County conducts an internal training program while following NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) standards, good anywhere in North America. Their annual recruiting takes place late August-September. New paid-on-calls join the fire halls and fulfill their probation until the end of December. Once they have completed their probationary period, they can go on calls. Training starts in January, with theory on Tuesday and Thursday evening and practice during the weekend. They are mentored throughout the whole program.

The Fire Department has five trucks in Redwater and a wild-land trailer.