COBDEN — The Whitewater Region Fire department is providing an expensive service, but one which the chief believes should remain.
At the April council meeting, Councillor Daryl McLaughlin questioned Chief Wayne Heubner on the reason why firefighters from two stations responded to a locked door call in the Lacroix Bay area.
The elderly gentleman was locked out and requested fire department assist him back in to get his pills, the chief said.
“When we arrived, he was able to get in,” he said.
Coun. McLaughlin said, “Seems like a costly entry.”
Chief Heubner noted the department receives about three calls like this each year. He recalled one incident where a mother walked out of her home for a moment and realized the door had locked behind her, and her baby was in the home alone. Not knowing whom to call, she called the fire department, he said.
Councillor Charlene Jackson asked if the township had a false fire alarm bylaw, where people are billed back for false alarms.
Chief Heubner said the township does have this type of bylaw, and, while the gentleman was in the home by the time the firefighters arrived, it wasn’t perceived as a false alarm, because the gentleman was in medical distress.
Reeve Terry Millar said it is an expensive service, but necessary at times.
“I would suggest if it’s only two or three times a year, it’s a heck of a good service for the community,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is discourage someone from making a call at the wrong time.”
Mayor Hal Johnson agreed with Coun. McLaughlin and Reeve Millar regarding the expensive service.
“There must be another way that the system has to answer that,” he said, adding, “It’s necessary to have available to our residents some way of addressing these situations. Those are things we can talk about when we are addressing our strategic plan.”
