After a multi-year search, Sechelt Fire Department has obtained two new fire engines for its fleet: a replacement two-person mini pumper and Sechelt's first-ever ladder truck.
Sechelt fire Chief Bill Higgs said replacing the aging mini pumper -the first truck out the door on a fire call - was the department's first priority.
"You only have to wait for two people before you're out the door with a pretty good firefighting tool," he said. "Given our volunteer structure, waiting for six people sometimes can take a fair bit of time."
Like its predecessor, he said, the new mini pumper is armed with a compressed air foam system -a tool long used in forest fighting, but considered "voodoo firefighting" when Sechelt pioneered the system for municipal firefighting in North America in 1992.
The compressed foam, he said, absorbs heat better than water does, plus gives firefighters a clear visual of what parts of a fire scene they've already sprayed. And Higgs said Sechelt's "voodoo firefighting" has been a wild success.
"It was so successful that [now] really all of North America fights fires using compressed air foam systems," he said.
The new mini pumper, he said, is marginally bigger than its predecessor - about the size of a small ambulance - and has been serving the community for the past month. It carries twice the water and flows twice the foam its predecessor did.
Higgs said the truck is worth its hefty $260,000 price tag.
"We just went to great ends to make sure that we were not just going to replace the truck that we had - we were going to make sure that the truck was going to do us for the next 20 years, which is the anticipated lifespan of the truck," he said.
And if the mini pumper was pricey, Higgs said Sechelt saved as much as $600,000 by purchasing its second "new" truck - a ladder truck or elevated master stream - second hand for just $280,000.
The 10-year-old truck's 75m hydraulic ladder, he said, has a water nozzle that can be controlled from the ground, allowing firefighters to spray fires from above.
This capacity, he said, will help protect the District's unsprinklered downtown core, where many buildings were built before a District sprinkler bylaw in the mid-90s required sprinklers in commercial buildings and residential buildings bigger than duplexes.
"We get fires in those [downtown] buildings - and I've been to three or four of them - and it's a big, big fire and you need an elevated stream," he said, explaining that the Gibsons Fire Department used its ladder truck to fight the June 4 fire which consumed Coles Marine Diesel and Wynken Blynken Nod Backpackers B&B.
Higgs said the ladder truck, which is expected to arrive in Sechelt in mid to late July, will also allow Sechelt to provide fire protection for buildings up to six storeys high, such as the proposed new development for the Pacific Spirit site.
