2025 05 31 Special Meeting of Council AEMA Request for Support

Newell County, AB (Canada) · · More Newell County, AB (Canada) meetings · More Alberta meetings

Transcript

Download: Text · SRT
SOURCE TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is downloaded from the source you provided but we haven't reviewed it for accuracy. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record. You can also request an AI-transcription of the audio file with the button to the left.

These are YouTube's auto-generated captions, not a human transcript — expect occasional errors, especially with names and technical terms.
[0:00] This is the one day you get to vote twice. So,
[0:05] okay. Should we Can we call the meeting to order? You bet. Okay, we'll do that.
[0:11] Um, anyone needs to be excused from the meeting?
[0:16] We're all here, I think. Okay. There's nothing to do with regard to minutes or
[0:21] anything like that, right? Oh, I I guess we we are missing uh Councelor Holly
[0:26] Johnson. I misspoke. Right. Could we have a motion to excuse Holly from the
[0:34] meeting? Someone raise their hand. I'll make that motion.
[0:39] Okay, that's Amanda. All in favor, please indicate.
[0:45] Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. Neil, are you in the mix here?
[0:51] Yes. Yes. Okay, good. I just my screen just doesn't have everybody up. Okay. Uh
[0:57] well with that uh approval for an agenda I guess we need that right the agenda of
[1:03] the agenda single single item on the agenda. Someone make a motion to approve
[1:09] that as circulated. Thank you Adena. All in favor please
[1:14] indicate that's carried. I think this should be fairly direct and
[1:20] straightforward. Matt, you want to just give us some preliminaries and give us
[1:23] some details? Yeah, you bet. Thanks council for the uh
[1:28] quick response after hours last night. I received a text from Chief Lukis around
[1:33] 5:30 and uh he notified me that he's been in touch with Tom Harnos, Alberta
[1:41] Emergency Management Agency and they're requesting fire apparatus and staff
[1:46] support. uh they're targeting uh slave lake and eden areas and conditions can
[1:55] change. So I have purposefully worded the uh recommended motion to be quite
[2:01] flexible and uh worded in such a way that we're
[2:07] relying and trusting our local chiefs and our regional fire chief by majority
[2:13] recommendation back to administration. uh to deploy resources so long as we
[2:20] don't put the local community at undue risk. Um, with that, I know Stuart's
[2:27] better suited to uh address any questions if council has questions about
[2:32] details, but I I do believe Stu's kneede in the logistics and has been uh working
[2:38] with his chiefs to find the apparatus and the folks who will uh be sent up for
[2:45] 2 weeks and then the chiefs will re-evaluate the local situation and the
[2:50] situation up north. Uh but we are recommending that council approved
[2:55] deployment of resources in support of the provincial request.
[3:00] Okay. Thanks. Thanks Matt. I appreciate the straightforward nature of that RFD
[3:05] and also uh basically puts the uh the final decision with the operations
[3:13] people which I think is is is well placed. Uh are there any questions
[3:18] though with regard to the request for decision
[3:30] today? Seeing none, is there someone prepared to make a motion? We have a
[3:40] recommendation. Greg, I will go ahead and make it. Sure. Go ahead. Great. I
[3:47] saw Greg. You want to unmute yourself? Yeah. Yeah, I'll make that motion.
[3:52] Arnold. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion or questions?
[3:59] I guess Dina, go ahead. I h I have a question. Um, do we know exactly what
[4:04] we'll be sending then? Yeah. So, uh, first of all, uh, Reven
[4:10] Council, thank you very much for meeting this morning. I appreciate it. Um it
[4:14] definitely is a important and vital matter at this point. Um we were late
[4:19] into discussions with the fire chief last night. Uh there is concern that you
[4:23] know things are drying up in the county of Newell. Um in the end we decided we
[4:28] would deploy one type three uh fire engine and uh the that fire engine will
[4:34] be the one out of Bose city with uh Bzano taking one of their fire engines
[4:40] cuz they have two and uh putting it in both cities. so that they have um water
[4:46] operations and of course the ability to respond to medical uh calls. So with
[4:51] that with that truck, it only seats two people. So at this time it'll probably
[4:56] be just two people and that fire engine. Um but I know that Tom really does have
[5:02] a a request for also a rapid response vehicle, but we're not going to go past
[5:07] what we feel comfortable with. And at that at this time, I think that's all
[5:11] we're going to send with the possibility of maybe a rapid response in a little
[5:15] bit here. Okay. Thanks, Stuart. Uh any other
[5:21] questions?
[5:25] Go ahead, Kelly. Just a comment. Uh we've heard from many speakers here this
[5:31] week and it's interesting the information has
[5:37] not made it to them yet that Alberta is on fire. Manitoba and Saskatchewan
[5:44] apparently have wildfires. Alberta has not been mentioned yet.
[5:49] Interesting. So, so just to give a little context to
[5:53] that that comment on the 21st, uh the province of Alberta actually had zero
[6:00] out of control fires with three fires being held. To Thursday, they had 25 out
[6:08] of control fires and uh and a bunch more that were being held. And then as of
[6:14] yesterday, we're up to 28 now out of control. So the number is
[6:20] exponentially growing in in less than 10 days. So uh that's why uh you know the
[6:26] the province is really looking to hopefully get on top of it. Um but now
[6:30] that things are really rolling, it's going to be tough to get control of it,
[6:34] but yeah, that's where it's at right now in this province. Probably an
[6:39] indication. Thanks for that. of outstanding dry and windy conditions
[6:44] in large parts of the province, I expect. So 100%. Yeah. Okay. Any further
[6:53] questions? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion as it's in front of us, raise
[7:00] your hands. Matt, can you see
[7:04] everyone? And I can except for Neil. Maybe it went down too
[7:10] fast. There you go. Okay. So, we're in favor of that. That
[7:17] passes opposition. Okay. If there's is there
[7:22] anything else we need to discuss or is that
[7:25] uh all we need to do this morning? Matt, that's all that's all you uh need to do
[7:31] this morning. Thank you very much, council. Well, thanks everyone and have
[7:34] a good weekend and we'll see you all Thursday if not before that. Eh,
[7:39] perfect. Okay. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All the
[7:42] best as you pursue this Stuart. Thanks. Cheers.