St. Albert Fire Services unveiled a new $3.1 million tower truck as part of its fleet on July 16, an addition the Fire Chief said was desperately needed as St. Albert continues to grow.
St. Albert Fire Chief Everett Cooke said this second unit would give firefighters quick access to heights up to 100 feet and the second unit adds much needed resources.
"Every community that's growing requires additional resources. With the growth in the city of St. Albert, we're seeing towers in the excess of 10 stories being approved. We have a lot of five and six story walk up structures in our community. Quick, timely access to heights and those buildings is a key to performing our duties as firefighters," Cooke said.
This is St. Albert Fire Service's second tower unit. The new truck is similar in nature to their existing tower truck. The familiarity is an advantage, Cooke said.
"They're able to be more familiar with that apparatus when they're operating it. It gives us a safer platform to operate, it's new, it's modern. It has more sensors on board and it has larger capabilities during times where we only have one apparatus available," he said.
Cooke said the first tower unit has been busy as St. Albert's population continues to grow and the call volumes increase, making the additional unit a welcome addition.
The city also got lucky in the sense that it could avoid long wait times. Cooke said when they were designing the new truck they were experiencing wait times in excess of 48 or 50 months. This new truck took about 14 months from purchase date to delivery. No tariffs were applied to the new truck, as it fell under the previous free trade agreement standards.
"We're very fortunate," he said. Without the quick delivery, St. Albert Fire Services would still be operating with one unit and relying on our neighbours for backup."
Cooke said their focus now is on updating their front line fire engines. He said they expect to add three engines, with the first arriving in the fall, and the others following in early 2026 and the third later in 2027.
"That will provide us the opportunity to have a very modernized firefighting fleet to provide our services. Beyond that, we're working on upgrading our rescue unit that we currently have to a more modern, larger unit so we can expand on the services we currently provide," Cooke said.
Wetter conditions helping firefighters
Cooke also said that due to wetter conditions, St. Albert was able to remove their fire restrictions earlier than usual this year. He said while St. Albert is experiencing a normal amount of structure fires in their community, calls for them outside their community have been greatly reduced.
"That gives us the time to reset, to focus on training, to keep our staff in-house, allow them to have their holidays so we're not trying to backfill vacancies by members out of our community. And at the end of the day, it allows us to focus internally on our own operations," he said.
