South-end firefighters have a new tool at their disposal: a recently completed 750,000-gallon water supply pond, now in service at the station serving Fulford.
Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue Chief Jamie Holmes said water from the new pond will be used for training at Fire Hall No. 2, meaning firefighters won’t be pulling from the on-site well or tanks for training nights — and the substantial extra water will likely be a key resource for the district during emergencies.
“It’s really going to boost our emergency response down toward Fulford,” said Holmes. “We can even take that water and pressurize the two training hydrants that are hooked up there, and put pressurized water out to the front tarmac of the fire hall.”
A six-inch dry hydrant pipe already installed at the site brings water to the corner of the nearby tennis court, Holmes said, where water tender trucks can pull in and out quickly. Holmes said the tailings from digging the pond were all used nearby, levelling out the training grounds and helping with some minor drainage issues around the fire hall — a “win-win,” he said, with most of the water now captured and sloping back into the pond.
The new pond is fully fenced for safety, he added, and a dock will be added in the spring — for drafting drills with the department’s portable water pumps.
In other news, trustees agreed to support an effort led by regional fire chiefs who are forming a collective to address the role of improvement districts with the Office of the Fire Commissioner — specifically, Holmes explained, the exclusion of improvement districts like Salt Spring’s from fire inspections and investigations under the new Fire Safety Act.
Holmes said he felt joining the coalition was an opportunity to educate provincial regulators, who he had come to believe didn’t fully understand improvement districts — “And I don’t say that lightly,” he said.
“Every level of government I talked to [before the new act] said their rationale was that a regional district was a better representation of the community because they have regular elections,” said Holmes. “So when I explained to them that we also have elections — and hold them more often, so possibly an even truer representation of the public’s wishes — their only reply was, ‘oh.’”
The fire districts — so far including those on Thetis and Quadra islands, as well as Shawnigan Lake, Cowichan Bay and Mill Bay — hope a unified response will ensure any legislative changes don’t leave improvement districts away from the table. For now, according to board chair Rollie Cook, that support will take the form of a letter indicating their endorsement of the group’s work.