Wednesday turned to be a great day for the Bienfait Fire Department. With the cheque for $7,500 that Bienfait Fire Chief Adrian Bachorcik received from Enbridge, the volunteer firefighting unit will be looking into purchasing some new equipment.
“Equipment is what we need it for. And the equipment is generalized for anything. It could be PP (personal protective gear) for the firefighters, or hoses, or nozzles that we need for the fire trucks too,” said Bachorcik.
Their first focus now will be the new radios and other means of communication.
“We do have some communication, but our radios are both 35 years old. They are the old analog-style,” said Bachorcik.
The department needs the personal radios for the firefighters to ensure that when it comes to an emergency all the efforts are synchronized.
“If we have a couple of hose teams, which is teams that are actually on the hoses fighting fires, there is communication with the pumper units to them. (And) any entry team that enters the dwelling, if they have to enter to either do fire suppression or rescue a person, they have (to have) communication as well,” explained Bachorcik.
Whatever funds they will have leftover they may put towards purchasing boots or other needs of the station.
Bachorcik said that in general, the Bienfait Fire Department is in good shape.
“We are doing great. I have an amazing, amazing staff of firefighters,” said the chief.
At the moment the unit consists of 15 volunteer firefighters. They try to hold their training regularly to maintain the level of skills and excellence and stay sharp if it comes to an emergency.
“Everybody has full-time jobs, everybody has lives, everybody has kids, but we try to train twice a month as much as we can,” said Bachorcik.
The Bienfait Fire Department covers the RM of Coalfields, the northern part of Coalfields, the Town of Bienfait and the Village of Roche Percee. One of the trucks they have came from Texas in 2012, and the other one was purchased from the Estevan Fire Rescue Service about two years ago. Each engine can pump out 1,250 gallons a minute at 100 psi, and each has a 100,000-gallon tank.
As firefighters keep using the equipment for training and calls, they notice that some things like hoses are getting a little more worn.
“Eventually maybe in the next year or two we may have to start replacing some of that as well too,” said Bachorcik.
But as of now their biggest concerns are radios, personal protective gear and then supplied air-breathing apparatuses (SCBAs), which allow firefighters to breath when working in gas or smoke polluted areas.
