BONNYVILLE - Bonnyville firefighters took to the streets on May 14 for their annual spring sidewalk wash. The Fire trucks filled up at the hydrants and parked along the roads so firefighters could hose down the winter grime and leave a fresh and clean main street.
Regional Fire Chief Dan Heney says, “This is a historical initiative. I joined the volunteer department back when it was just the town of Bonnyville in 1993 and this was something we were doing even back then. Every springtime we would go out and do the streets and it has just carried on. Firefighters just get a hold of the town and let them know we’ve got it planned."
Bonnyville's Fire Chief Craig Wenzel shares his appreciation for the community's support in allowing them to take up main street to do the cleaning. Wenzel says, “It gives us the opportunity to come out into the community in a non-response fashion and help out in other ways.”
Wenzel adds, “Most of us just got done work and went straight to [the clean up] for the evening."
The Bonnyville Regional Fire Department has around 160 volunteers across its seven stations, says Heney, and they’re always looking for volunteers.
With smiles, the sun shining, and the smell of wet pavement in the air, the crew worked from 5 p.m. until almost 9 p.m.
Heney offers nothing but kind words about the crew, saying, “The Station 5 crew that works out of Bonnyville is a pretty good team... They would have been having fun just working together as a team. Whether they know it or not, they’re practicing firefighting skills while they’re doing it. Learning how to move the hoses around – learning how to manipulate the nozzles is a big part of the learning curve.”
Heney highlights just how important it is to be comfortable handling the hoses.
“If they’ve got 100 or 200 feet of hose stretched out, they're probably pulling close to 400 lbs of water... When they’re spraying that water, they're flowing 750 litres a minute probably,” proving the immense amount of work these volunteers put into cleaning the sidewalks.
This tradition of the spring sidewalk clean-up is positioned to happen before the Town does any road cleaning. This way, says Heney, the dirt washes off the sidewalks, then the street cleaners come, “now not only are the streets clean but the sidewalks are clean.”
