By Charlene Tebbutt

St. Louis fire hall

New fire hall needed in St. Louis

Feb 20, 2019 | 1:48 PM

The community of St. Louis is in need of a new fire hall as the local department looks to meet a growing demand.

Mayor Marc Caron said grant submissions already started for a new fire hall in the village of about 450 people. Caron, who is also the deputy fire chief in town, said the local volunteer fire department is growing and a bigger facility is needed.

The organization has also put out a call for more volunteers to join the department.

“We are gaining more tools, or more means to fight fire, we’re getting better at it and we are getting more sophisticated at it,” Caron said. “So, we need to be able to house our new apparatus, our trucks, and we just don’t have the capacity to do that.”

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Caron said the fire department has been upgrading its current fleet over the last few years, but the current hall would cost too much to renovate. Both the village and Rural Municipality of St. Louis have some funding in place for the new facility but are still seeking government or capital funding.

“It’s been pretty hard to find the funding,” Caron added. “The village has funding and the rural municipality has their funding in place, but we still need that bridge funding to make it realistic for us to do it.”

Caron said the fire department serves about 2,500 people in the area, across about 600 square kilometres of land. The department also has mutual aid agreements with other surrounding communities.

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Charlene.tebbutt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @CharleneTebbutt