INNISFAIL – The Town of Innisfail has agreed to formalize mutual aid agreements with a trio of regional municipalities.
During town’s council’s regular meeting on Sept. 25 Gary Leith, the town’s fire chief, asked council to approve the signing of mutual aid agreements with the Sylvan Lake, Penhold and Olds fire departments.
He told council the Town of Innisfail had a Mutual Aid Agreement with Sylvan Lake dated back to 2012 but there was none in place with the Olds and Penhold fire departments.
During the Sept. 25 council meeting Leith noted the town already has a contract agreement with Red Deer County to cover areas of the rural municipality.
“We're getting into the administrative process to revise them every five years or so,” said Leith. “We've provided mutual aid support to Penhold on a fairly regular basis. So it was an administrative piece to actually pull that up together and actually come up with an agreement.”
Leith told the Albertan that while Innisfail would never refuse a request for assistance from a neighbouring municipality a Mutual Aid Agreement does formalize the process.
“The use of them in certain incidents in Innisfail wasn't really the driver force as it was already in play,” said Leith. “As a process, those agreements had already been sent out for Sylvan Lake, Penhold and Olds to see if that was agreeable to them. It’s been in process for the last six months or more.”
Leith noted that the process also ties into the town’s regional emergency management agreements to have those formal agreements in place.
At the Sept. 25 council meeting, Leith said the mutual aid agreements would have the following benefits:
• Provides terms under which departments can provide resources, facilities,
equipment, and personnel to support emergency incidents.
• Combining/sharing training facilities and training resources.
• Reduction in the need for specialist equipment such as aerial appliances, rescue
boats, high volume pumping, rehab, air support and command units.
• Greater reliability and coordination with other agencies.
• Mechanisms for reimbursement if any.
Following Leith’s presentation Innisfail town council unanimously approved a motion to sign mutual aid agreements with the Sylvan Lake, Penhold and Olds Fire departments.
