The Department came into
official existence in 1983 with the passing of Regional
District of Nanaimo Bylaw #612 to establish the DVFD. Prior
to the passing of this Bylaw, Dashwood was one of the few
remaining populated areas on the East Coast of the Island
below Campbell River without fire protection.
Before the Bylaw could be
established, an interim Board of Directors was established
and a referendum was held to get approval from the public for
the establishment of the DVFD.
The Interim Board were
Charles Killip, Walter
Bates,
Howard Braden, William (Bill) Parker,
Joseph La Fauci, Glen Stranaghan.
At a Public Meeting attended
by 35 people, held in
Lt. Qualicum Women's Institute Hall (Lt. Qualicum Hall)
January 29, 1984. . The meeting was called by the Interim
Board at which Elections were held.
The first Elected board of
Directors were
William (Bill) Parker,
Howard Braden,
Walter Bates, Joseph La Fauci,
Donald Alberg, Eldon Davis
Our first Pumper was a
Ford/Superior was delivered in March of 1984 and served the
department 20 years.
The unit was retired from
service and sold in July 2004 |
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The replacement
pumper is a Superior Fire unit that was purchased in
May 2001 1000 gallon pumper
top mounted Hale 1050 pump
with Foam Pro 2001 system.
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The
Original Tanker was acquired in 1983 and put into service in March
of 1984.
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This unit has now been replaced with a Tanker/Pumper from
Fort Gary in June 97
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A GMC 4 x 4 crew cab truck was purchased 1996 during the first
few months it was housed close by at Fireman Ken Lehmann's
residence until the third truck bay was completed. |
The first elected Chief was
Vern Boley.
The fire trucks were first
housed in a temporary hall at the Rebco Industrial Buildings.
The DVFD hall was completed and the trucks were then moved
into the hall in April of 1985.
Over the years since we moved
into the Hall significant upgrading and construction has been
completed by the members. Interior finishing from office
space, kitchen facilities, storage areas, work benches, gear
storage areas and training facilities have all been done.
Outside improvements include the training tower, decorative
flower gardens (these gardens were removed in 1997 and
grassed over), landscaping, the parking lot and lawn areas, a
basketball net, and horseshoe pits. Currently the Department
has plans for further development, including expanded water
storage and training facilities.
The Department assessed the
requirements for the future and has developed plans for Hall
expansion. Currently blueprints are being drafted for the
expansion. The issue was endorsed by the public at the Annual
General Meeting held in March of 1989.
The expansion was focused at
providing an extra truck bay for an additional fire truck
required by 1997. In addition, this will provide the needed
room for training facilities, storage for fire fighting
equipment, work space for repair and maintenance of fire
fighting equipment, and room for the Firefighters use. This
has now all been completed.
Dashwood Fire Department has
Mutual Aid Agreements with the following departments.
Bow Horne Bay
Coombs-Hilliers
Deep Bay
Errington
Nanoose
Parksville
Qualicum Beach
November 4th,
1994 - The benefits of "Mutual Aid" really showed the
advantage when a major fire occurred in Parksville along the
Island Hwy. The call came into Parksville Department at 18:02
hrs.
At that time the
Island Highway was the only route between Nanaimo and
Qualicum to the north. Traffic had to be re-routed around the
back roads of Parksville.
The fire started
in Grennans record store ultimately spreading through the
attic void to five other stores. The end result was five
totally destroyed and another store received some damage. 
Due to the
magnitude of the fire Parksville requested mutual aid from
Nanoose, Coombs, Errington, Qualicum and Dashwood. In total
86 Firefighters were working on the scene.
In the case of
Dashwood a call came in at 19:00 hrs to provide four
additional firefighters with air packs to aid the crew of
Parksville's Department. Following containment and knock down
of the fire the first crews were released at approx 01:00 hrs
and the last of the crews left the scene at 03:30 hrs.
This fire caused the loss of the local Telcom
Operation, which was housed in the same block of buildings.
Telcom provided
the emergency call-out service for all the local fire
departments and the Doctor on Call service .
(This was prior
to the 911 emergency coming into service).
The Telcom radio
tower can be seen in the upper right of the above photo.
During the Telcom
down time all fire calls were re-directed to Nanoose Fire
Department who then transferred calls to the respective
department concerned.
As a result of
this all fire halls were manned for phone and radio during
this Telcom outage which lasted until about the middle of the
following day.
Telcom was able
to become operational once again with the aid of other
building owners in Parksville; they were able to re-located
their emergency lines to an alternative location thanks to
the effort of BC Tel.
As a result of
this mutual aid call several things became evident at the de-briefing
of the departments. One major item was identification of
equipment and their fire-hall location.
This resulted in
a numbering system where the all the fire-halls in the mutual
aid agreement were numbered as follows.
Fire Hall
|
Num
|
Pumpers
(E)ngine
|
(T)ankers
|
(L)adder
Truck |
Other
(C)ommand
(R)escue
|
| Coombs
- Hilliers |
1 |
E104, E105 |
T102, T103 |
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| Errington |
2 |
E211, E212 |
T209, T210 |
|
R213 |
| Nanoose |
3 |
E11, E14, E16 |
T13, T17 |
|
R12, U15 |
| Parksville |
4 |
E41, E42 |
T41 |
L41 |
C41,
C42, R41 |
| Qualicum |
5 |
E51, E56 |
T53(H),
T53(L) |
L58 |
R55, R57 |
| Dashwood |
6 |
E61 |
T61 |
|
C6, R61 |
| Bow
Horne Bay |
7 |
E71 |
T73, T78 |
|
C73, R76 |
| Deep
Bay |
8 |
E81 |
|
|
R82 |
| Also
agreement was reached that all departments will endeavor to equip their
tankers with the following specifications. To aid the speed of
mutual aid water shuttling. |
| One
eight inch rear dump valve |
| One four
inch storz fill valve |
| One 2½
inch bat thread fill valve |
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Dashwood has also completed as of January 2007 the equipping of
all fire hydrants in the Dashwood Fire Protection District with
Storz Pumper ports.
The
black hydrant cap indicates it's a "Storz type" connection |
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The towns of
Parksville and Qualicum Beach are also getting there hydrant pumper ports upgraded.
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May 1996 - DVFD became an
Incorporated Society under the B.C. Society Act. This means
that we now have full control over our financial affairs,
including all bookkeeping. The Regional District collects the
Tax Assessments on our behalf.
1996 - The North Island E911 Communication service
(from north of Nanaimo to the end of Vancouver Island and the Sunshine
Coast) came into operation and brought together all the Fire
Departments, Police & Ambulance operation under one organization to
provide integrated dispatch. This was the largest land based E911 system in
the world at that time. With this also came a sophisticated pager and radio
system. At first there were many problems due to black spots caused by the
local mountain etc. The system is financed by property taxes and a surcharge
on phone line rentals.
In Dashwood Fire Department’s case and our
other local fire departments it eliminated the need for Telcom, a local
business that took all the local fire departments emergency calls and then
activated the local fire pagers.
Over the years this business provided an
excellent service to all fire departments, they still provide dispatch for
local Taxi’s, Doctor on call and other services.
March 1997 - Fire protection boundary was
increased in to included what is known as Qualicum
River Estates,
(Phases 1, 2 & 3 only) a large number of 2.5 - 5
acre rural lots
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Sept 98 - Well
drilling commenced at our Corcan Road Tank
Site.
We now have a well producing approximately 25
gpm which was put into service in June 2000.
This
provides for re-filling of our 6000 gallon water
reservoir as and when needed.
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June 16, 1996 another major fire occurred at
the far end of the Dashwood Fire Protection District where land clearing was
taking place prior to sub-dividing the land into 2 – 5 acres parcels. This
time we needed mutual aid assistance from Forestry because of the magnitude
of the fire that would get well out of hand.
Forestry Fire Officer arrived by helicopter
and with our Chief they surveyed the area from the air and it was decided to
call in the Chemical Air Bombers form Abbotsford. Within 20 minutes they
arrived and several drops of retardant was spread over the area, also a
Helicopter was called in for water bucket drops.
The fire was eventually under containment
after 8 hours and finally out after some 20 hours from the initially
call-out.
We had mutual aid from Coombs/Hilliers, Bow
Horn, Brannan Lake prison camp plus
a Forestry crew and their air support.
In all this fire was fought with 3 engines, 4
tankers, 2 helicopters, 3 planes and 41 firefighters (11 from the prison
camp).
July 29, 2000 the Dashwood
Fire Department held a reunion of past and present members of
the Board & Firemen for
Mortgage Burning Party
May 31, 2001
we took delivery of our second pumper
Superior
- Freightliner FL- 80
1000 gallon pumper top mounted Hale 1050 pump with Foam Pro
2001 system. This pumper is to become our primary pumper the
older pumper has now been sold.
November 2002 - Mutual Aid again came into action
when Qualicum Beach requested assistance, a major fire occurred when the only Supermarket in town
Qualicum Foods caught fire.
The
front page of the local paper shows the crew working. The
fire was discovered by the cleaning staff when they entered the store late
evening after hours. 
The fire spread very quickly throughout the
building via the false ceiling. The cause of the fire is suspected to have been
due to insulation having come in contact with one of the lighting fixtures in
the general area of the bakery section. The intensity of the fire caused a roof
collapse and equipment on the roof in that area of the fire source fell through
the roof breaking a gas line
creating an even greater source of heat aggravating the whole situation.
The end result of this fire was the
total loss of the structure and a major food outlet in the community.
Dashwood assisted under the Mutual Aid agreement
by providing equipment. and man-power together with Parksville, Errington,
Coombs/Hilliers
The end result of this fire was the total loss
of the structure and the major food outlet in the community.
January 2004 saw the start of planning and
designing of a further addition to the Dashwood Fire Hall by adding another
2000sq' to the north end of the building that will include, first aid room, additional
toilet, office accommodation, separate kitchen and an enlarged meeting rm. This new addition will use up some of
the existing parking lot, the old meeting come training room will ultimately
become another truck bay.
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| Before work commenced |
Drainage Installation |
Gravel foundation installed |
April 2005 saw the new parking area being created on the south end of the
property complete with drainage.
January 2007 saw the DVFD employing
our first Fire Prevention Officer (part-time) with the appointment of
Nick Acciavatti; as of August 2007 the
classification of this job was upgraded to that of Full-time Fire Chief.
Public Relations within our rural community as each year passes, the
Department has become more involved in activities on a year round basis.
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The Annual
Halloween Fireworks display and Bonfire has become a
community tradition.
In 2007 saw over 500 folk attending.
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Carving by Luke Hepting |
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The
Department has been involved in both the annual Muscular
Dystrophy campaigns and the fire Prevention week campaigns. Funding for
these events take place yearly in the form of Car Wash and request for
support from various local businesses and some generous private individuals.
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Car
Wash on the Water Front 2004 |
