The RM of Ritchot is almost ready to cut the ribbon on a brand-new fire hall. The hall, currently under construction in Ste. Agathe, will be the municipality’s third fire hall. The others are situated in Île-des-Chênes and St. Adolphe. The new hall is expected to be operational sometime in July.
Mitch Duval, Ritchot’s chief administrative officer, says that the new hall will be a huge asset to residents living in the southerly region of the municipality.
“The response time from St. Adolphe to Ste. Agathe is an automatic 12 to 15 minutes for the fire truck to get there,” says Duval, “never mind for the call to come and the guys to show up on site [at the St. Adolphe fire hall]. I would say [it took] a minimum of 20 minutes before. Now it should be reduced to five to ten minutes.”
The new hall will be located on Highway 305, within town limits and just east of the Highway 75 on what was previously deemed crown land. The 60-by-90-square-foot building will feature two administrative offices—one for the fire chief and one for the deputy chief—bathrooms, change areas for the volunteer firefighters, mechanical and electrical rooms, a kitchen, and a 30-person classroom in the upper mezzanine area for firefighter training sessions.
“The mezzanine area will be very useful,” Duval says. “They will be able to do training up there and set up a house configuration on-site.”
He adds that the mezzanine will also be useful as a rappel practice site for volunteers, allowing them to improve their skills by rappelling down to the apparatus bay.
“I think we did it the right way,” he adds. “We consulted engineers that have built past fire halls to see the dos and don’ts. We followed all of their dos.”
A new pumper truck will also soon be added to the department. At this point it’s unclear at which hall the new truck will be stored, but once in place the Ritchot Fire Department will own three pumper trucks, one tanker truck, one rescue vehicle, and a number of auxiliary vehicles.
Approximately 18 newly trained volunteer firefighters are about to get initiated. Most of these volunteers are from the Ste. Agathe area and have already been equipped with new gear. Until the new hall is ready for action, they will be training at the municipality’s other two fire halls.
“A lot of time and commitment is required to get their level one [training],” Duval says. “It is very time-consuming. It is a big ask by the RM to get these volunteers. The training is paid for and the mileage to go out to Brandon [for the training] is taken care of. You don’t do it for the pay. It’s a volunteer position.”
As with any emergency, fire calls should be made to 911, whose operators will dispatch the nearest fire station. Depending on the size of the fire, the fire chief may decide to bring in backup from other Ritchot fire stations. Volunteers may also, at times, find themselves fighting fires in surrounding municipalities.
The Ritchot Fire Department belongs to a mutual aid district which includes Niverville and the RM of Tache. The Mutual Aid System is a no-charge reciprocal agreement that bordering towns and municipalities can opt in to, and it can be of immense value when large-scale emergencies take place.
The complete cost of the new fire hall will come in at an approximate $1.7 million. This includes the hiring of LM Architects for the design and Parkwest Projects Ltd. to manage and build the project.
“We hired [Parkwest] to be the construction managers, and we also hired them to do the tendering,” Duval says. “Some stuff they are building and some stuff they subcontract. We had about 14 bids come in for the architectural portion and I believe three for the project manager portion.”
