Two fire trucks from Vulcan County were recently stolen and damaged beyond repair.
Vulcan County Director of Protective Services Doug Headrick explained what happened.
"Around midnight on Monday, I got a call that the police were in pursuit of two of our apparatus from our station 20 hall in Champion. They were recovered in town after quite the chase, I gather from what the RCMP are telling me. They were going at high rates of speed, they were hitting approaches, they were jumping roads, essentially, these trucks are pretty much written off. So, we're just going through the process right now of getting them replaced. Fortunately, we're a regional service, so we were able to pull apparatus from other departments to make sure we didn't have any gaps in service for that area. Both vehicles are no longer operable."
So, Vulcan County is still protected, but it will take a while longer before the department has a timeline on when the vehicles will be replaced.
"The (insurance) adjustor will be down tomorrow (Friday), and we've just had an appraiser out about two days ago. We're just working through it. We've already found an apparatus in Ontario that we're trying to source, and we'll go to Council on the seventh of May to seek funding to essentially get that truck down here. So, the truck we're looking at replacing right away is our rapid unit, which is wildland, and we're getting into wildfire season. We've been experiencing quite a few wildfires, grassfires here already. So, we definitely want to get that truck replaced quickly."
Headrick also thanked the local Vulcan RCMP for doing a great job of recovering the vehicles and equipment.
"The RCMP did a fantastic job on getting the trucks back quickly, so they never left the area, so we got all the equipment with it. Some of the equipment is damaged, but again, insurance will cover that, but for the most part, we got all our equipment back."