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MERRITT HERALD FREE
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Ribbon cut on $4 million firefighting facility Kamloops Fire Centre Manager Steve Schell (second from left) Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart, Merritt Mayor Susan Roline and Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson cut the ceremonial ribbon to officially mark the opening of the new Provincial Wildfire Training Centre and Merritt Fire Zone office at the Merritt Airport. Michael Potestio/Herald
By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
The new $4.74-million Provincial Wildfire Training Centre and expanded Merritt Fire Zone office officially opened last Thursday. The new facility has a floor area of 14,300 square feet, space for up to 58 staff, storage areas for equipment, and three classrooms to support field training. Kamloops Fire Centre Manager Steve Schell said seeing the smiling faces of the fire crews who are going into the new state-of the-art facility after being housed in old trailers at the Nicola Fire Base is a measure of the success of this project. “It really was a team effort. It wasn’t just one individual or
one agency leading this, it was a full team effort pulling all of this together,” Schell said. Staff in the Merritt Fire Zone respond to an average of 92 wildfires per year, Schell told the crowd that gathered for the opening. The crowd included special guests Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart, Merritt Mayor Susan Roline and Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson. After touring the new facility, Thomson and Tegart said they were impressed. “I think it has huge opportunity around other training. The building is impressive, it’s B.C.-built and this will do great things for our riding,” Tegart said. “I think what stood out to me was the way that they have
designed the building in order to make sure it really enhances and supports the work of the Wildfire Management Branch — the flow through the building, the capacity in the building, and the training capacity that we’re going to have, which, previously, was a little bit truncated in different places,” Thomson said. Forest Protection Officer Kim Janowsky, a 28-year veteran of the B.C. Wildfire Management Branch, said he’s worked out of trailer facilities his whole career and the opening is a “banner day” for him. “I’m very thrilled to be in here, very proud of the end product that was put together by the design team and [I’m] really looking forward to seeing what benefits and what options we have available to
us because of this new facility,” Janowsky said. The Nicola Knights, Merritt Fire Devils, four first-response crews and five full-time regular staff will be located at the new facility, Janowsky said. The old facility is being demobilized and the trailers auctioned off, Janowsky said. Schell told the Herald the new building meets all their operational needs and will improve crews’ ability to respond to fires because of the building’s proximity to the airport, noting firefighters can expand their helicopter fleet if needed and other jurisdictions can now fly in resources to meet firefighting demands. “Where we were located before was a great facility. It met its needs, but it was tired, it was worn out,”
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Janowsky said. Janowsky said one advantage of the new, bigger facility is crews are able to hold briefings at the facility itself rather than find a different location in Merritt, which they had to do before because of space limitations. They also have the flexibility to run the new facility as a separate fire centre, Janowsky said. “What that means is, if we need to solely concentrate on the Merritt Fire Zone and the geographics because we’ve got so much fire going on, we can now split off from the main fire centre and do what we have to do without compromising anything within the fire centre operations,” Janowsky said.
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