A remote northern Ontario Cree community expects to receive a fire truck in the next week. It will arrive two months after a child died in a fire, cbc.ca reported.
In late January, a 10-year-old girl in the community of Peawanuck died in a house fire, the report said. At the time, the community of around 200 people near the Hudson Bay coast didn’t have access to fire services or basic firefighting equipment.
A city official with Weenusk First Nation, which includes Peawanuck, said the fire truck has been ready for around a week, and they are just waiting for the winter road to the community to be ready so the vehicle can be driven from Winnipeg to the community, the report said.
Winnipeg-based Fort Garry Fire Trucks is expected to deliver the pumper.
The city official said the small community has never had sufficient resources to deal with house fires, the report said.
The fire truck will have to be parked in a vacant warehouse for at least the next year, according to the report. The community plans to build a proper fire hall, but still needs to bring in engineers to sign off on the structure they have planned, the report said.
In the meantime, the city official said the community plans for four people to get immediate training on how to use the fire truck, so they can start using it right away, the report said.