A generous donation means that 16 fire departments throughout the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) now have an extra tool when it comes to responding to wildfires in rural or hard-to-reach areas.
Thanks to a partnership between the TNRD and Canadian charity GlobalMedic, the departments have each received a fire skid unit that contains a holding tank which can hold up to 1,000 litres of water, a pump that creates a high-pressure water stream, and a forestry fire hose. The total value of each fire skid is approximately $6,000.
The units are self-contained and include all the components required, meaning that fire departments can hit the ground running and get them operational immediately. The units are designed to be added to pickup trucks and utility vehicles, turning them into small but agile fire trucks that can be moved into areas that might be inaccessible to full-sized fire trucks.
Between fall 2023 and summer 2024, GlobalMedic donated fire skids to 16 rural fire departments within the boundaries of the Thompson-Nicola region. This includes all nine TNRD-operated fire departments (Blackpool, Little Fort, Loon Lake, McLure, Monte Creek, Pritchard, South Green Lake, Tobiano, and Vavenby), as well as fire departments and fire brigades located in 70 Mile, Adams Lake, Cache Creek, Chase, Chu Chua, Sun Peaks, and Upper Clearwater.
The donations were facilitated by the TNRD’s Fire Protection Services department, and manager Jason Tomlin says that the TNRD was happy to be the middleman.
“The TNRD didn’t direct who would get them, but we were able to store them at our Mission Flats location and then load them up for departments as people showed up.”
Tomlin says that the skids’ versatility makes them super convenient, as they can be added to any one-ton or larger pickup truck as required.
“A lot of people have pickup trucks, so you can put one in for fire season and take it out after so that it doesn’t tie up one resource in perpetuity as a fire truck. It converts a one-ton pickup into a piece of wildland firefighting apparatus, then back to a one-ton for other purposes.”
He adds that their ability to go where other, larger pieces of apparatus can’t proved helpful recently, when there was a lightning strike near Monte Lake.
“The big trucks couldn’t get to the location, but a pickup with the fire skid was nimble enough to get up the road and suppress the fire. Without that, it would have been a lot of labour to drag hoses to get to that location.”
“We are grateful to our friends at TNRD,” says Rahul Singh, founder and executive director of GlobalMedic. “They have let us use their base in Kamloops to act as a cross dock to receive and distribute skid units to fire departments around the region.
“They have helped us to identify fire departments that can use the units and helped us to distribute them. By pulling together we can get more gear out to firefighters to help them get these fires out.”
Since late 2023, GlobalMedic has donated more than 140 fire skids to rural and volunteer fire departments in western Canada, helping to increase capacity and ensuring that rural and volunteer fire departments have the resources needed to effectively respond to wildfires.
“It’s a great program,” says Tomlin, adding that it is an ongoing one, and that other fire departments within the TNRD are in touch with GlobalMedic about getting a skid.
“I don’t know in what world you get something for nothing anymore. This is a phenomenal thing that GlobalMedic is putting out there.”
