CORNWALL – A new fire department partnership will see Cornwall and two neighbouring townships share some resources in order to cover off some unprotected areas of the city and give the townships another tool at their disposal.
The city signed automatic aid agreements with South Stormont and South Glengarry Monday night.
Under the terms of the agreement, the city will have tanker trucks from the townships come in for water support in areas where there are no fire hydrants or water service in the city.
Those areas are sections of Cornwall Centre Road, Service Road, 5 Hall Street, McConnell Avenue, Richmond Drive, South Branch Road and the northern section of Boundary Road.
In exchange, the city will be able to respond to South Glengarry and South Stormont with an aerial ladder truck, if they need it.
“From our perspective, we’re getting that service (water) from them in those areas and in exchange, if you will, if they ever have an incident where they require an aerial device, we’ll go,” Fire Chief Pierre Voisine told Cornwall Newswatch.
An automatic aid agreement is different than a mutual aid agreement, which is already in place. A mutual aid agreement is used where firefighters and resources are called in once a service exhausts all its personnel.
“In the property areas…the unprotected areas, there’s no hydrants there. As soon as a call comes in, dispatch will (send) us but we’ll also dispatch the tankers from neighbouring municipalities, so we’ll all show up at the same time,” the chief said.
Voisine said the municipalities will bill each other on a cost recovery basis. For Cornwall’s billing, it will be based on the same rate the city bills the Ontario government for responding to fire calls on Highway 401 within the city limits.