Drafty fire hall causing problems
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Repulse Bay (Jan 08/01) - It's so cold inside the fire station that water in the town's fire truck froze.
It may seem like a humourous situation, but volunteer firefighters only discovered the problem when they were called to a fire during a blizzard last month.
Repulse (Naujat) senior administrative officer Brian McQuarrie called it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
"We had a fire call during the storm, making it necessary to bring the equipment out and that's when the (problem) was discovered," said McQuarrie.
"Thank goodness it turned out to be nothing major.
"Had that been a legitimate fire, our firemen would not have been able to use the pumper to extinguish it.
"They may have been able to use the water truck to save surrounding buildings, but they would not have been able to save the burning building."
The fire station has been plagued with heating problems since it was expanded two years ago.
The fire station has two furnaces but McQuarrie said even on a calm day -- when the outside temperature is about -22C and the thermostat is set to 29C -- the building rarely warms to 16C.
When strong winds blow, the temperature in the station falls below freezing.
Doors face North
"The doors on the building face North, right into the prevailing wind in Repulse," he said. "So, if you wanted to trace the roots of the problem, they go back to when the first lines were ever drawn on a piece of paper."
The heating deficiencies have also been costly.
From December 1999 to the end of November 2000 the station's furnaces guzzled 19,341 litres of fuel.
Fixing the problem is high on the agenda because they town should get a new fire truck next year.
Department of Community Government and Transportation (CG&T) spokesperson Shawn Maley said that if the capital plan is approved by the legislative assembly next month, the truck would arrive in Repulse this summer.
But, he said CG&T is not prepared to put a $250,000 fire truck in a hall where it's not being properly protected.
"We're looking at some type of upgrade to the station prior to the fire truck arriving," said Maley. "The easiest solution would be to relocate the overhead door so it's not facing North.
"If we can't do that because of surrounding development or whatever, we have to do something to reduce the wind and cold on that door."
