Mountain View County council has approved a new 10-year mutual aid agreement for fire services with area municipalities. The move came by way of motion at the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
The agreement is in place to provide mutual assistance to parties for the control of fire, fire prevention, emergency medical services, hazardous materials control, and/or other emergency support in the event of a major fire disaster or other emergency.
The new agreement was put in place following the 2017 Alberta Community Partnership grant and fire review. The past agreement expired in September 2017.
The agreement sets out such things as protocol for a request for assistance, command responsibility at emergency scenes, compensation, and pre-incident planning.
Regarding a request for assistance, the “fire chief or authorized designate of the requesting party at the scene of an incident or emergency and within its geographic boundaries, or in situations where the agency is engaged in an area in which it has a pre-established mutual aid agreement, is hereby authorized to request assistance from another party to this agreement.”
Regarding command responsibility at emergency scenes, the agreement states that the “fire chief or designate of the requesting party at the scene of the emergency, to which the response is made, shall be in command of the operations under which the equipment and personnel sent by the responding party shall serve, provided, however, that the responding equipment and personnel shall be under the immediate supervision of the officer in charge of the responding apparatus.”
Regarding pre-incident planning, “the fire chiefs or designates may, from time to time, mutually establish pre-incident plans which shall indicate the types of and locations of potential problem areas where emergency assistance may be needed, the type of equipment that should be dispatched under such circumstances, the number of personnel that should be dispatched under such circumstances, and the training to be conducted to ensure efficient operations.”
Regarding compensation, the agreement states that “unless otherwise billable, each party agrees that it will not seek from the other party compensations for services rendered under this agreement.
“Each party hereto shall at all times be responsible for its own employees for the payment of wages and other compensation and for carrying workmen’s compensation upon said employees; and each party shall be responsible for its own equipment and shall bear the risk of loss therefore, irrespective of whether or not said personnel and equipment are being used within the area of primary responsibility of that party.”
The agreement can be extended by written agreement from all parties.
