Fire Station
and
Department History
Fire Station
Located at 39052 on the south side of Fey Road (Road 104 N), the 1160-square-metre building (12,500-square-foot) was designed by MMP Architects Inc., and the general contractor was Sher-Bett Construction. Insulation exceeds R2000 standards, and the building is equipped with a geothermal system that provides heating, air conditioning, and hot water. The state-of-the-art building cost $1.2 million and should serve the area for fifty years. Funding was provided by the Rural Municipalities of Alexander and St. Clements, and a 20-year contract negotiated with the Province of Manitoba for fire protection service for the cottages within Grand Beach Provincial Park will help cover the station's operating costs.
The vehicle area consists of four drive-through bays, which accommodate two trucks each. The main floor office area provides an emergency operations centre, two offices, washrooms, a room for cleaning and drying firefighter turnout gear with lockers, storage and cleaning closets, and a compressor room for charging SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) air bottles. The high pressure compressor was provided by the Office of the Fire Commissioner, and neighbouring Victoria Beach Fire Department has access to the compressor room.
The three-storey tower will be used for training and hose drying. The second floor of the station consists of a training room for up to 35 personnel, three bedrooms for use by ambulance crews in the future, an exercise station, washrooms with showers, a kitchen and dining area, and a lounge area.
East Beaches Fire & Rescue gratefully acknowledges donations for our new Fire Station from the following:
Bio-Static Systems Ltd.
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History of the Fire Department
in Grand Marais
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Former municipal councillor Harry Blake-Knox with plaque naming him Honorary Fire Chief |
A fire department was first established in Grand Marais by the Rural Municipality of St. Clements in 1975. Previously, the area had been protected by parks personnel from Grand Beach Provincial Park, although there was no formal agreement in place.
Former councillor Harry Blake-Knox was instrumental in gaining approval for a municipal fire hall to be located in the village of Grand Marais, and was subsequently made an honorary fire chief in recognition of his efforts.
Art Carriere, who was the Superintendent of Grand Beach Provincial Park at the time, was made the first fire chief of the fledgling department. Two truck bays were added onto the Municipal Police Station on Grand Beach Road in Grand Marais. Eventually the police station portion was removed, and a new addition with kitchen, washroom, utility room, meeting room, and two small offices was built onto the back of the truck bays.
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Unit 1 at a Grass Fire |
Equipment in the early days consisted of pick-up trucks with portable gas-powered pumps towing trailers with water tanks mounted on them. When faced with a major fire, the early Grand Marais Fire Department simply tried to protect adjacent properties until the arrival of the East Selkirk Fire Department with its more modern apparatus and equipment. Then, as East Selkirk acquired newer trucks and equipment, the hand-me-downs came to Grand Marais. That is how Units 1 and 5 - a fire pumper and a tandem tanker, respectively - came to be based in Grand Marais. Unit 1 was an early '50s Chevy, and is now on exhibit at the museum in Austin, Manitoba.
The first truck purchased specifically for Grand Marais was Unit 7 - a water tanker capable of carrying 7570 litres of water (2000 U.S. gallons). It was acquired in 1980 and is still in service. Unit 1 was replaced in 1988 by Unit 12 - a fire pumper with a 66 litres/second (1050 U.S. gallons/minute) pumping capability plus a carrying capacity of 3785 litres (1000 U.S. gallons). Unit 12 is also still in service. Since the mid-'70s, the Grand Marais Fire Department had used an old Dodge cube-van to carry turnout gear, breathing apparatus, forcible entry tools, and other equipment to incidents, until it was finally replaced in 2000 with Unit 8. Based on a GMC 6500 chassis, Unit 8 serves as the department's Equipment Van and Command Unit and can carry eight firefighters. Unit 16 - a 1994 Ford F-350 modified and donated by Ian Hailstone - serves as the department's Rapid Response Truck.
As the department's second fire chief, Ted Thomas, recalls, there wasn't much in the way of training in the early days, and personal protective equipment consisted of hip-waders and a long, heavy overcoat. By the early '80s, however, insurance regulations had evolved to require a complement of at least 15 firefighters, and training and equipment standards had improved as well.
Prior to the introduction of the F.R.E.D. system (Fire Reporting Emergency Dispatch operated by Manitoba Telephone System), the precursor to 9-1-1 in many parts of rural Manitoba, people reporting fires or accidents would call the Fire Phone. There were three such phones - one each in the home of the fire chief, the deputy chief, and the captain. Then, while their husbands were responding to the call, the wives would phone the other firefighters on the department.
The Grand Marais Fire Department acquired vehicle extrication equipment in the early '90s to better deal with serious motor vehicle accidents.
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Grand Marais Fire Hall on Grand Beach Road |
During Ted Thomas's tenure, the department tried a couple of times to persuade municipal council of the need for a larger fire hall. The repeated shoehorning of 4 trucks into the 2-bay fire hall was inevitably resulting in minor damage to the trucks and occasionally to the building itself, but the municipality had other spending priorities.
In 2003, the department's third fire chief, Mark Sinclair, learned that neighbouring Rural Municipality of Alexander was looking at building a fire hall in its Ward One. Since the Grand Marais Fire Dept. was already providing fire protection service to Alexander's Ward One and parts of Ward Two under the terms of an agreement between the two municipalities, it only seemed to make sense to explore the possibility of working together to build a modern fire station that would better serve residents and visitors in both jurisdictions. Once an agreement to cooperate was in place, the name of the fire department was changed to East Beaches Fire & Rescue to better reflect the area being protected.
After meetings too numerous to count, what started out as a sketch on a piece of paper in 2003 began to take physical shape in early September, 2006. Construction continued through the winter, and the building was expected to be finished by the end of May, 2007.
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Manitoba Conservation Crop-Duster over Fire Station |
There were some tense moments on 25 April, 2007, when a fire that had originated in a nearby waste transfer station jumped Provincial Trunk Highway 12 and started burning its way through a pine forest towards the unfinished fire station. Wind conditions made it prudent for the fire department to ask for the assistance of Manitoba Conservation. Four aircraft were dispatched to the fire from their base across Lake Winnipeg in Gimli - a bird dog plane and three crop-dusters capable of dropping fire retardant - and they were able to quickly halt the advance of the fire.
On 19 June, 2007, East Beaches Fire & Rescue was able to move its trucks into the new Fire Station.