Rumours started to fly in September, that the Town of Innisfil was considering the closure of Fire & Rescue Station One – the station located on Innisfil Beach Road near 25 Sideroad in Alcona.
It’s the fire station closest to the plazas on Innisfil Beach Road, the library, and the new affordable housing apartment building at the corner of 25 Sideroad.
The station is staffed by volunteer firefighters, who respond to call outs – driving to the fire hall to man the trucks; all full-time firefighters are now housed at either the Lefroy or new Big Bay Point stations.
On Oct. 1, a query to the town generated the following response from Communications Lead Johnny Keogh: “I can confirm that Station 1 in Alcona is still staffed by Volunteer Firefighters who are paged out on an as-needed basis and there are two fire trucks (one’s called a pumper, the other a tanker) and a utility truck on site.”
But rumours continued, that the town was looking at closing the station – in part because the municipality is running a deficit as a result of the impact of COVID-19 and loss of casino revenues, and in part because of council’s decision to ask staff to return a 0 percent tax increase for 2021.
The municipality has received Safe Restart grant funding of over $1.03 million to cover COVID-related costs and losses, and recently decided to also apply for a Phase 2 Safe Restart grant, for 2021 – but it will have to dig deep and look at possible service cuts to hold the line on taxes.
“With regards to the fire hall, there have been many ideas put forward as council has directed the town to return with a 0 percent tax increase this coming year,” acknowledged Coun. Ken Fowler. He added, “Nothing has been written in stone, so we are exploring many avenues to save the taxpayer base the required funding,” to achieve the 0 percent target.
He expressed his support for Emergency Services.
If Station 1 is closed, the closest fire trucks would be located in Stroud, Lefroy and Big Bay Point, leaving downtown Alcona – a designated settlement area and growth node – without a station.
The closure would also mean that some volunteer firefighters would have to travel farther to respond to calls, potentially increasing response times.
While the first truck to leave Lefroy or Big Bay Point, manned by full-time professional firefighters, will be able to leave the station within four minutes, additional vehicles would have to wait until enough volunteers arrived to take the trucks out.
Fire & Rescue Station 2, located at 20 Sideroad and Line 5 in Lefroy, is 7 km from 25 SR and Innisfil Beach Road – as is Station 5 in Big Bay Point.
The town was recently asked again about a potential closure.
“At this time, we are not planning on closing the fire station in Alcona,” said a spokesperson for the town, who acknowledged, “There were a lot of difficult discussions over the past few months, as staff worked to achieve the 0 percent budget that council requested for 2021.”
Budget talks are now underway.
“The draft budget is a living document, which has evolved over the past few months, leading up to the formal proposed budget which will be presented to council this Wednesday,” said the spokesperson. “The proposed budget does not include looking at the closure of the Alcona Fire Station. However, ultimately, final decisions are with council.”
