Local news delivered daily to your email inbox. Subscribe for FREE to the rdnewsNOW newsletter.

Red Deer County Protective Services recognized for help with Waterton wildfires

Nov 20, 2017 | 1:00 PM

Red Deer County’s Protective Services unit has been recognized for its help with the Waterton National Park wildfires this summer.

The recognition came from Tony Hamori, District Commander Southern Alberta RCMP, who presented Red Deer County’s Protective Services staff and volunteers with a District Commander’s ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ at Red Deer county council chambers Monday morning.

Assistant County Manager and Director of Red Deer County Protective Services, Ric Henderson, said six of them went down during the September fires, three people on the day shift, three on the night shift.

“It’s good to see the appreciation when you go out and help some other agencies, especially for our volunteers, cause they are true volunteers that go out and want to help people,” said Henderson.

He explains that Red Deer County Protective Services took its Command Post trailer down to the park from September 12-14 and provided it to the RCMP’s Special Tactical Operations (STO) team to work from while they were doing road blocks management. County members also provided local Mounties with food.

“I think we’ve shown we’re very prepared and we’ve created these relationships and it wasn’t hard to do. When we went down, we just slid right into the roles they wanted and did what they needed,” said Henderson, pointing out they’ve been planning for how to handle these situations for many years.

“The other trailer we took is our deployment trailer. It’s set up so we can feed ourselves when we go out to a disaster site or a ground search, it was easy to take that and help somebody else with it.”

In times of crisis, Henderson said nobody can do it all themselves, “Partnerships are really important and every little bit that we can supply or somebody else can supply comes all together in times of disaster and makes things work really well.”

Tony Hamori, District Commander for Southern Alberta RCMP, echoed those comments.

“It’s so significant these days to have good partnerships with our emergency services folks. We seem to be getting more and more involved in the natural disaster side of things,” he said. “Alberta has had quite a bit of experience in that over the last few years with Slave Lake, Fort Mac, Waterton, High River, so we’ve made extensive networks over the last few years with respect to our partners and emergency services.”

Inspector Kevin Kunetzki from the Leduc RCMP Detachment was one of roughly 30 RCMP members at the Waterton fires and says Red Deer County Protective Services support was integral to their operations.

“The services they provided were logistical support, so providing us space in which to work from. As you know, in some of the locations that we go to, there’s not a lot of infrastructure left,” added Kunetzki. “In fact, a lot of people will have abandoned or evacuated and so having the ability to use their mobile services, allows us to set up and function appropriately with a command structure and a place for members to meet and go and from which tasks and missions deployments can be given out from.”

He says the RCMP’s 120 member STO team can help in various scenarios, including calls for assistance to major crime investigations where they might be required to do evidence searches or to public order incidents.

“We are also K Division’s tactical team and responding to natural disasters, so things like the High River flooding or the Fort McMurray wildfires,” explains Kunetzki. “We can provide assistance in providing security, roving security, as well as check points. We also do evacuations, where we might need to go in and assist a municipality with making sure that everyone’s getting out safe.”

Red Deer County Mayor Jim Wood thanked the RCMP for the recognition after the presentation and added how “extremely proud” he is of Red Deer County’s Protective Services and that he is glad they were able to help.