The Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA) will soon have more reliable communication between its members.
The Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA) will soon have more reliable communication between its members.
Last week, the Town and MD of Bonnyville councils approved a combined total of $536,500 for the purchase of equipment that will allow the BRFA to complete the change over to the Alberta First Responder Radio Communication System (AFRRCS).
"This is going to be a significant benefit, it's going to give us the ability to communicate virtually anywhere in the MD of Bonnyville," said regional fire chief Brian McEvoy. "This has been a long process, it's taken a number of years to get to. The fire fighters and authority greatly appreciate the support from the two sponsoring municipalities as we move our communication system into the 21st century."
The project is one McEvoy explained they've been working on since last year, and are on track to having the fibre optic networks in place to connect to the AFRRCS by the end of June. Using the dollars from the MD and town they will be purchasing the actual handheld and mobile hardware to be used by firefighters and in fire trucks.
After completing the request for proposal process, the company chosen was Telephone Connections out of Bonnyville.
Upon completing testing, McEvoy told council the system will provide them with 98 per cent coverage throughout the MD, a significant improvement over the current radio communications.
"With our current system, it's 1980s technology that's well past its end of life date. We're running into issues when we do have component failures, replacements aren't available, and haven't been for a number of years... Think of what mobile phones looked like in the 1980s compared to now."
He added, "This is quite a leap forward in technology. It will give us a better system that will give us coverage pretty much anywhere in the MD of Bonnyville, which will significantly improve our ability to respond to emergencies.
The AFRRCS is also being implemented in the MD Public Safety Department through the fire authority. This will allow firefighters to communicate better with Peace Officers when responding to a call to check on their safety, as well as ensure Peace Officers always have the ability to request help.
The roll-out of the system has been broken down into phases. The first phase will see the replacement of hardware for Station 5 in Bonnyville, Station 2 in Goodridge, BRFA administration and dispatch, and the public safety department.
"These are our two high-users, Station 5 and public safety, and Station 2 in Goodridge is our most remote station. We'll be able to work out any bugs and any problems with these stations before rolling out the other ones," noted McEvoy, adding the planned go-live date for phase one is July 17.
"That will give us the ability to implement it and train in smaller blocks. Instead of training 250 people in one shot, we're going to break the training into 100 people at a time."
The Town of Bonnyville has approved the BRFA for a maximum amount of $86,500 to cover the radios for Station 5 in town, and a percentage of the BRFA administration and dispatch centre upgrades. The remainder of those upgrades, as well as the funds for the Goodridge station and the public safety department hardware, are coming from the MD at a preliminary cost of just under $102,000.
The rest of the fire stations (Glendon, Iron River, La Corey, Fort Kent, and Ardmore) make up the remainder of the total $450,000 approved by MD council. The target for getting these stations on the AFRRCS is the end of the year.
