Coaldale FD battled fire at the recycling facility – twice

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Sunny South News

By Cal Braid
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Coaldale Fire Department had its hands full on two occasions this past summer when fires blazed at the town’s recycling facility. On both occasions –in May and July– crews spent three days on site dousing the flames and regaining control. Crews from surrounding municipalities provided support in a region where collaboration is key.

 “Those are probably our biggest fires this year,” Chief Clayton Rutberg said. “We’ve had quite a few smaller fires, but those are probably our biggest events.” Between emergencies and fires, the department took 546 calls as of the end of September.

 “In comparison, last year, we did 684,” Rutberg said. “Where we’re sitting right now, we should beat last year’s total.”

 Of course to fight fires, you need firefighters, and Coaldale’s annual recruiting class produced eight new team members. “We typically only do one a year,” he said. “We do one starting December or January, and that usually ends just before summer. So we finished up a recruit class at the end of May. Usually we’ll only do one if we have at least five (prospects). If it’s less than five, it’s hard for us to recruit because it’s not enough people to go through the actual class together.”

 The recruits are drafted through an application process that the department usually posts in  December and runs until about mid-January. From there, Rutberg and his team do interviews and physicals, and if the prospects pass those, they move them forward to the recruit class, which lasts for about three months,

 “For those three months, they have to show up every Monday and Wednesday in the evening, where they train with a training officer. And then once they finish that recruit class, then they hit the floor,” he said.

 Coaldale’s department usually has about 40 volunteers and five full-time staff. “Right now, I think we’re sitting at 42 total. So we’d be at 37 volunteers. So yeah, there are only three openings. So most likely, unless we have more openings before next year, we probably won’t do a recruit class until we have a couple more.”

 Their firefighting and emergency services aren’t bound by town lines; they travel as necessary to cover the surrounding area. “Everything south of the river in Lethbridge County,” Rutberg explained. “We will meet up with the M.D. of Taber at the county line to the north of the river, basically where we meet up with Picture Butte. And then basically everything up to the City of Lethbridge.”

 The department is funded by the Town of Coaldale and Lethbridge County and doesn’t often fundraise for its own needs, but rather for charity. It supports the food bank, food hampers, or this year, Ladders to Learning, which provided school supplies for different age groups.

 “Our fundraising usually is for stuff like that. It’s the volunteer association that does the fundraising if we have a certain piece of equipment or something that we want to purchase that we don’t have enough funds for through the town. Sometimes we’ll ask them if they’d like to make a donation back and purchase something. But for the most part, their fundraising is all for their different charities that they donate to.” And speaking of new equipment, Rutberg said the department has what it needs to operate and no major equipment purchases are scheduled now until 2028.