Time to replace P.E.I.'s aging fleet of forest fire trucks?
Kerry Campbell | CBC News | Posted: May 31, 2016 9:00 AM | Last Updated: May 31, 2016
Oldest vehicle still in use dates from disco era, all trucks will soon qualify as antiques
Sony introduced the first Walkman in 1979. The Bee Gees cleaned house at the Grammy Awards that year, and reached the top of the Canadian hit charts on four separate occasions. Joe Clark became the youngest prime minister in Canadian history, though his minority government would prove short-lived.
The Walkman, the Bee Gees and Joe Clark have all come and gone. Each has even undergone a resurgence of sorts (cassettes are making a comeback).
'You have… a very similar situation to what you saw in the big fires up north, Fort McMurray, is that you have housing subdivisions within treed areas, or certainly within very short distance of trees.' — Dan MacAskill, former head of P.E.I.'s forest fire protection
But here's something from 1979 that never went away: it's a three-axle Chevrolet tanker truck still called upon to help workers with the P.E.I. forestry department put out forest fires.
The '79 Chevy is the oldest of a fleet of six vehicles with an average age of 30. That's old enough to qualify as an antique under P.E.I.'s Highway Traffic Act.
The newest truck in P.E.I.'s forest-fire fleet is a 1991 model. The other four trucks date from the 1980s. Most of the vehicles are four-wheel drive tanker trucks, designed to be able to go places conventional fire trucks can't. According to officials, they're called upon an average of about 25 times a year.
Resources down
"When you have a very significant forest fire, the struggle comes when you have equipment that is broken down," said Dan MacAskill, who served as head of P.E.I.'s forest fire protection until retiring in 2013.
"You have a higher probability of breakdown in an older vehicle. So your resources you have available to fight a fire, they're simply down. You don't have them."
MacAskill says there were equipment breakdowns while he was still in the service, which required dispatching another piece of equipment from another part of the province.
He says he began advocating for new trucks in 1998, and he's still advocating in retirement, making a presentation this spring to the minister of finance during annual pre-budget consultations.
"Almost 50 per cent of the province is in woodland," he says, outlining the need for updated firefighting equipment.
"You have homes scattered throughout the entire province. You have… a very similar situation to what you saw in the big fires up north, Fort McMurray, is that you have housing subdivisions within treed areas, or certainly within very short distance of trees."
Hard to find parts
"There's no doubt about it, they are an older fleet of trucks but they've been extremely well-maintained and they work very effectively for when we need them," says Communities, Land and Environment Minister Robert Mitchell.
"However, based on their age, finding parts for these trucks has become a little bit challenging…. We have discussions about adding them into our annual budget to be reviewed."
Mitchell says he tried to include funding for new equipment in last fall's capital budget, but "there just wasn't the money for allocation due to budget restraint. But next year is a new year and we'll be promoting it again."
$1.5M to replace fleet
Mitchell says it would cost up to $1.5 million to replace the entire fleet. He says a good plan would be for government to replace the trucks in pairs.
"There's no question about what's going on in Western Canada right now certainly heightens the need to have really good gear available," said Mitchell.
"Any province in Canada could have the same occurrence, including Prince Edward Island included. It's certainly time to take a revisit of that, and be prepared."
In, 2006 the Pat Binns government announced a $675,000-plan to replace provincial forest fire vehicles, but that plan was never followed through. Binns and the PCs lost the election the following spring.