Came across a news item yesterday on the website of Mix 97 radio in Quinte West, Ont. Stirling-Rawdon – a lovely community in Hastings County, north of Belleville, Ont. – is moving ahead with plans to build a new police/fire department.

I visited Stirling-Rawdon a couple of weeks ago with Randy Vilneff, the training officer for nearby Marmora & Lake, and Stirling-Rawdon Chief Gene Thompson. The present Stirling-Rawdon fire hall is a former car dealership that’s been modified and while functional, lacks some of the basic necessities.

Stirling-Rawdon council awarded the construction tender to Peak Engineering of Brighton, Ont., which produced the lowest of four bids,  at $2.4 million. Infrastructure money from senior levels of government will cover two-thirds of the cost. Remarkably, the new building is supposed to be ready by Christmas – can’t imagine that happening in a larger municipality.

The CAFC, in Ottawa this week to lobby MPs and cabinet ministers, has once again made a plea for sprinklers in all new residential buildings. According to today’s Calgary Herald, CAFC president Bruce Burrell said the association believes Ottawa should offer incentive money to entice highrise and high-occupancy residential buildings to be retrofitted with sprinklers. The chiefs are also calling for tax relief for volunteer firefighters.

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Lastly for today, a BBC story about public education and prevention gone awry. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is replacing 5,000 smoke alarms that it installed in homes as part of its fire prevention program. Batteries in the alarms were supposed to last 10 years but have gone into low-battery mode after just five years and are beeping continuously, driving residents mad. You can read more here .

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