Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) centralized fire service, unveiled at last week’s board meeting, was not what many feared. It seemed to compliment, rather than replace, the District’s seven volunteer fire departments. Cortes Currents reached out to Mark Vonesch (MV), the Regional Director for our area, for a more in depth perspective.

MV: “The size of this service is quite small and it's really just funding two full-time jobs to provide some general administration support around the things that rural fire departments and the regional district need to coordinate more on. I think it makes sense both for rural fire departments in the Strathcona Regional district and the regional district itself to have some shared administration.”

“It's going to make it easier for rural fire departments. It is going to make it easier for the regional district to make sure that all the rural fire departments are meeting regulations, that inspections are happening in a coordinated and uniformed way. We're looking at training and inspections in ways that are smart for everybody.”

“This is not going to cost very much money. We're looking at roughly $16 per property owner, if your property's $800,000. The average is less than that in Cortes. This is a very small cost that is going to provide some shared admin support for rural fire departments.”

“My first impression of this is that it actually makes a lot of sense. It's something worth supporting. I think it's going to ultimately bring down the budget that the Cortes Fire Department is going to require moving forward, as we share some administration, particularly around training inspections, regulatory requirements, symbol bulk purchasing and general administration.”