Precious time is being wasted when a call comes in to Virden’s fire department, fire Chief Cory Nixon says.

There isn’t enough space for the southwestern Manitoba town’s volunteer firefighters to gear up, meaning they’re forced to jockey for position, he said, having to stand in line before jumping into the pumper trucks. It’s also becoming unsafe for firefighters to stand in front of the trucks while gearing up.

“We’re very tight quarters,” he said. “We have to walk sideways between trucks sometimes to get into them, so we’re just looking to get more space.”

Firefighters in Virden are about to get that space, thanks to $3 million in funding — split 50/50 between the Town of Virden and the provincial government — to renovate the current fire hall and construct a new building beside it.

The new building will be used to house the department’s five fire trucks.

Right now, parking is at a premium in the hall. Vehicles are squeezed in and parked behind one another. Two are so close that their doors open into each other.

“Currently three of our trucks share one [bay] door, so if you need the one in the back, you have to move two first,” said Nixon.

Nixon also pointed out there were only a few centimetres of space between the front bumper of the main fire engine and the bay door.

“Our gear is all located on our apparatus floor too, so all the personal protective equipment that we wear is exposed to the diesel fumes. One of the trucks sits right beside the gear rack, so when it drives away it just covers the gear that’s on the rack in exhaust,” he said.

Cancer is a major concern for firefighters, Nixon added.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to keep our members safe. The safer we can show our volunteers we can keep them, the more likely they are to come help out and volunteer.”

‘A busy volunteer fire department’

The Wallace District Fire Department, which serves Virden, has 27 volunteer members, who respond to calls in a roughly 1,200-square-kilometre area in the rural municipalities of Wallace-Woodworth and Pipestone.

“We have a busy volunteer fire department,” said Virden Mayor Tina Williams, and the town’s location on the Trans-Canada Highway means they respond to a lot of accidents.

“We have the oil field, all the farming communities around here, as well as our regular ratepayers in town with fires and incidents they need help for.”

The department has two fire stations: one in Virden and another in Elkhorn, with all the equipment owned by the Wallace District Fire Board.

Williams told CBC the town has the funding for the fire hall renovation because it’s been saving money for more than a decade, and in each of the last few years has put $150,000 in the budget “just in case.”

“We’ve been planning for it,” she said. “You don’t want to have someone like the province coming along and say, ‘We could give you money, but if you can’t match it you can’t get it,’ right? So we kind of prepared for that.”

The provincial government’s $1.5 million in funding is coming from its Manitoba growth, renewal and opportunities for municipalities, or GRO, program.

Virden was one of several communities in southwestern Manitoba that the NDP government announced in late January would share a total of $11.4 million to support local fire services.

The town can now fast track plans that started in 2014 with the purchase of a house next to the fire hall, said Marc Savy, Virden’s deputy mayor and a member of the Wallace District Fire Board.

The project is important because “this structure is not safe,” he said. “It’s full of carcinogens.”

The fire hall is nearly 50 years old, and will be repurposed to fit firefighters’ needs, including training space, meeting and common rooms, areas for showers and laundry, and a new ventilation system. Once the new hall is finished, it will have five bay doors, one for each emergency vehicle.

If Nixon had his way, “construction would start tomorrow.”

Calls have consistently increased over his 26 years as a firefighter, he said.

“Last year was our busiest year in four years,” said Nixon.

“We actually recruited 10 [firefighters] last year, so just the hype of new equipment and safer space to work in seems to be helping with recruitment and retention.”