South Green Lake Volunteer Fire Department

It’s hard to believe that 2011 is over!

Quite a lot has happened over the past year! Click on the titles to take you to the photo albums with more photos.

Some highlights:

New Building

We started construction of our new building for the firetrucks. Aaron Burwell and his crew at Wilderness Custom Homes do a great job at putting up the building. There is still quite a bit to do, but it is getting done by a small group of dedicated volunteers under the direction of our Acting Fire Chief, Dale Dyck. We have some siding that still needs to get done, but we will probably wait until Spring to finish it. Inside we still have some panelling to put up, and there is some temporary heat to make it easier to work inside.

The next project will be permanent heat and then the last item will be the floor which is a large part of our building budget.

New Truck

The next item is the new (to us) 1994 Superior Pumper Truck that we purchased from Kamloops in November. It was an unplanned purchase that presented itself and it was too good to pass up. This enables us to have at least one truck less than 20 years old for our underwriters certification. It will provide added support to our existing pumper truck and it will be very nice in the winter as the rear cab is totally enclosed. Riding in an open cab in subzero temperatures will make anyone appreciate a warm cab! We decided to use part of the building fund for the purchase of the truck so our building has slowed down right now, but the truck is in its new home! The new building was required as the trucks now are taller and longer than what our old building could accommodate. Inside the building it is very large, but when the new truck is parked inside, it’s very easy to see how large these trucks are now.

Prescription

The last major item is the approval of the wildfire prescription that currently is happening right now. The prescription is the clearing and burning of beetle kill trees from about Access 7 to just about the Snowmobile Clubhouse in behind the properties. This was decided on by Forestry. We were disappointed that it didn’t cover a larger area, but we hope there will be future prescriptions to extend from Access 7 to the end of South Green Lake Road. Part of the funding for the prescription is that we have to provide 25% of the funding (which is about $20,000) as in-kind labour for burning the piles that the faller’s create. There are no machines allowed in the area so all of the falling is done by hand. We have already been out to start burning but there is an incredible amount of fuel there. We have to follow the burning rules which include checking the Venting Index on the BC Air Quality website.

Wishing everyone a Prosperous New Year!