Construction is set to begin in May and be complete by late December. The old station will be demolished after the new one is operational.

The current building has room to house only one fire engine.

A new or upgraded Station 3 is included in the fire department's specific purpose excise tax proposal, which is on the May 2 ballot. If residents vote yes, $6.8 million will be used to renovate Station 1 in downtown Jackson and purchase land to expand Station 3. It all depends on what can be done to the building on deed-restricted property, fire officials said.

The training, designed to prepare firefighters to work in areas without fire hydrants, uses a combination of portable pumps, pumper and tanker trucks and above-ground holding ponds -- as well as kilometres of hose -- to move water from area streams and ponds to where it is needed in case of a fire.

"We're the only small (fire) department to have the super shuttle qualification," said Errington firefighter George Klemm, who organized the scenario-based training that imagined a forest fire bearing down on rural residences between Errington and Englishman River Falls. "This is important to departments that work in areas without hydrant service."

"A quint basically means that it has a fire pump on it that has an ability to pump water, carry water and carry the hoses," said Operations Division Chief Tim Hiemer. "It carries a large selection of ground ladders, but most importantly, it has an elevated aerial device on it. This particular one is a 75-foot quint that allows us to be very nimble and be able to get around town very easily with it."