Over the years, the Kings County Hazmat Team has been composed of three volunteer fire departments, Wolfville, Kentville & New Minas. Responding to a handful of incidents across the Western region of Nova Scotia and beyond.
Their calls for services have ranged from motor vehicle accidents, gas leaks, assistance to police and an array of other incidents hours outside of the county.
In a letter sent to municipalities, Effective on December 19th/25, the Kings County Hazardous Materials Response Team will be suspending their hazardous materials response services to all municipalities outside of Kings.
The difficult decision comes as a result of significant increases in costs associated with maintaining and replacing essential equipment-such as detection meters and other specialized tools, combined with a growing volume of calls for service across the three fire stations who make up the team.
“These pressures have placed a considerable strain on our team’s operational and financial capacity.” – Kings County Hazmat.
The team’s focus will remain on ensuring the continued safety and reliability of service within the County of Kings. The team will continue to respond to Level B hazardous materials incidents occurring within Kings County only, for the foreseeable future.
“We recognize that this change may impact your emergency planning, and we sincerely value the mutual aid relationships we have shared with your fire departments over the years. We remain hopeful that ongoing discussions at the regional and provincial levels will support the development of a sustainable, long-term solution for hazardous materials response across the broader region.”
The Kings County Hazmat Team has assisted many times over the years to neighbouring fire departments and agencies across Nova Scotia including, Hants, Shelburne, Lunenburg, Queens, Digby & Annapolis Counties.
There have been discussions over the years of having a central station specifically for Special Hazards, similar to Colchester County, where services like these are available and funding is provided, taking the strain off of the volunteer fire departments who are apart of the team.
Adrian J.
