Tuesday, August 22, 2017

No Water From Beiseker?

A couple of you mentioned to me that you were concerned that the Rocky View Fire Services was recently refused water to fight a fire outside the village.  Last night at our council meeting, we got the whole story from our fire department.

A while back our firefighters and the Rocky View Fire Services responded to a fire east of the village.  The Beiseker Fire Department arrived at the scene first (they were closer) and started work on the fire.  The RVFS soon arrived from Irricana, took over command and joined in fighting the fire.  It was decided that more water might be needed, so water trucks were dispatched to the closest water source which was Beiseker.

Standard Operating Procedures dictates that the municipality providing the water be informed so that adjustments can be made to the pumps and pumping capacity of that municipality's water system if necessary.  Beiseker has one of its pumps in for repair.  Caution must be taken so the people of the village don't completely lose water pressure.

Due a communication glitch, the Rocky View firefighters were unable to contact village staff so they decided to proceed to Irricana to get the extra water.  As it turned out, the extra water was not needed and the water trucks stood down and returned to their fire hall in Irricana.

Beiseker Fire Chief Martens reported to council that the communication glitch has indeed been rectified.  Fire apparatus fighting fires in this area (whether inside or outside the village) are once again able to get water from our hydrants here in the village.  There is also another source of water in Beiseker, the old reservoir behind the post office which has well water and it is untreated.  Unfortunately the pumping capacity there is quite low and filling up one of those huge tanks would take a very long time!

I hope this clears up some of the misunderstandings around this incident.

I'll take this opportunity to give shout-out to all of our firefighters both from the Beiseker Fire Department and from Rocky View.  You folks do an incredible job protecting all of us!

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