The Drumheller Fire Department received a crash course on their new air pack equipment on Tuesday evening at the Drumheller Fire Hall.
    Firefighters from East Coulee, Rosedale and Drumheller gathered at the hall. Steve Eddy of Guillevan International Safety and Industrial Products and Garth Laturnus of Scott Safety were there to familiarize the department with their new air packs.
    The Drumheller Mail reported in its October 17 edition that the Drumheller Fire Department had received a donation of $100,000 from Cenovus to purchase 19 new Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA). While the Drumheller department had high quality equipment that was continually certified, the new Scott SCBA Air Paks are state-of-the-art and will provide firefighters with more than 45 minutes of air when battling a fire and buy peace of mind they have the safest, most dependable equipment to allow them to do their job.
    The new air packs are carbon fiber rather than aluminum and weigh less. Each pack has a man down alarm that sounds in the event of inactivity. There is a heads-up display, which shows a read out of all important monitoring information for each firefighter’s needs displayed right in the mask. The SCBAs feature Pack Tracker can track where each air pack’s location is on scene.
    The 19 packs will be available to firefighters in all three Drumheller halls.

Garth Laturnus of Scott Safety explains some of the features of the Drumheller Fire Department’s new SCBAs to
firefighters from Drumheller, Rosedale and East Coulee Tuesday night.

    The fate of Hanna Primary School will likely be settled next February or March it was learned at a recent board meeting of Prairie Land Regional Division (PLRD).
    At that time, Alberta Education will make its funding announcements for school divisions across the province.
    Officials at PLRD are hoping their funding will include enough to modernize J.C. Charyk School so that Hanna Primary students can move into the building.
    “There won’t be [funding] announcements made until February, so we’ll have to take it from there and see what we can do to accommodate the amalgamation. There’s going to have to be some significant upgrades before the schools join,” said Wes Neumeier, superintendent for PLRD.
    The PLRD board has decided to use capital funding for the upgrades, rather than use infrastructure maintenance and renewal (IMR) funds, which has been earmarked for maintenance and minor upgrades to various schools in the division.
    The decision to combine Hanna Primary School and J.C. Charyk was made in August after months of intense debate. The motion was brought forward in light of the age of Hanna Primary and the considerable cost of bringing it up to standards.
    It was felt any money that could be used for renovations would be better spent modernizing J.C. Charyk School, which has students from Grades 4 to 12.
    The board is awaiting to see what funding is available to modernize J.C. Charyk and then go from there.
    “There is a motion in front of the board to amalgamate the two schools [Hanna Primary and J.C. Charyk] and they reaffirmed their commitment to that as long as we can renovate J.C. Charyk to meet the student’s needs,” said Neumeier. “The board has reaffirmed its commitment to doing this well and making sure there is funding for everything to go as planned.”
    Should the funding announcement in February be favourable, work could begin on modernizing J.C. Charyk over the summer break. However, any final decision as to when Hanna Primary students make the move will wait until funding is known.
    Until then, Hanna Primary will continue to operate as normal.
    “They [PLRD board] believe to put the students together, there has to be adequate support and upgrades,” said Neumeier. “The board is committed to maintaining the necessities at the school as long as its operating.”