According to Ritchot fire chief Scott Weir, emergency call in 2025 were pretty consistent with prior years. In total, 144 calls were received last year as compared to 147 in 2024.

While the majority of the calls were alarm-related, 49 of them were connected to motor vehicle accidents. In two cases, the fire team required the use of their extrication equipment.

Five calls came in for mutual aid services from surrounding municipalities. For Ritchot’s fire department, the wildfires of 2025 gave members an added opportunity to flex some muscle around the province.

As for fires in Ritchot, Weir says there were no incidents of exceptional loss.

“We had six structure fires,” Weir says. “[Those included] a few garage and shed fires. Nothing that I’d call suspicious in nature.”

As is typical, he says many of the calls that came in were false alarms for both fire and carbon monoxide detection. This is a pretty normal day in the life of a fire attendant.

If the call comes in for a rural property, response time generally varies from 10 to 15 minutes. Less, if it’s urban.

“In most cases, we’re getting to the hall in five or six minutes and then, if it’s in town, it’s at the 10- or 11-minute mark.”

Between the municipality’s three fire halls—in Île-des-Chênes, St. Adolphe, and Ste. Agathe—the fire crew numbers almost 60 members. A couple of those were hired in 2025.

“We could use a few people in Île-des-Chênes,” says Weir. “We have a full roster in St. Adolphe, and maybe we could use one or two people in Ste. Agathe. But we are pretty full, all things considered, so we’re in pretty good shape.”

About ten percent of the fire team do the same job on a full-time basis somewhere outside the municipality. And about ten percent of the frontline fire team are women.

Every second Wednesday, with the exception of July and August, the team performs drills to keep their training up to standard and their response times quick.

With the addition of some new equipment in recent years, the fire team had no big expenditures to report in 2025.

“We’re all very fortunate in this municipality that we have good equipment and we’re all very well-trained.”

While they were once referred to as volunteer firefighters, today the more accurate term is paid on-call. That means they receive a stipend from the RM for every service call they attend and every training hour they put in.

“Council is very supportive of the fire department,” Weir says.

To continue to keep numbers at a reasonable rate throughout 2026, Weir encourages Ritchot residents to keep up the work of maintaining their smoke alarms and checking their fire extinguishers.

As well, he adds, stay on top of those family fire drills, practicing them at least once per year.