NORTH BATTLEFORD ‑ The North Battleford Fire Department is beefing up its communications capability with additional radios.
At their meeting Monday, city council members approved the purchase of five radios.
The radios include a base unit in the recently purchased Community Safety Officers’ vehicle. As well, they are adding a portable unit at City Hall for occasions when it acts as an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), plus three more portable radios that would assist with inter-agency communication in responding to large scale incidents.
The purchases are P25 radios running at a cost of between $7,500 and $8,500 each.
The purchase stems from the department’s recent review of their response to the major apartment fire on 102nd Street on Jan. 3, 2022.
According to Director of Protective Services Lindsay Holm, one of the issues that came up as a result of that fire was “our abilities for interoperability between agencies.”
In a memo to council Holm stated some mutual aid partners did not have portable radio capacity to ensure radio communications through their departments. Also, while the city’s EOC was activated, there was no radio capacity at the backup EOC site located at City Hall.
This purchase will address those issues, Holm indicated to council. Also, Holm indicated they will be replacing all radios this year through a provincial initiative through Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, so this was perfect timing.
Holm said the P25 radios are equipped with a common interoperability channel which allows the various agencies to go to one designated channel, allowing them to communicate inter-agency. This is in addition to channels the various agencies like fire, EMS and the RCMP would have.
Council approved the purchase of the radios unanimously.
