Looking to train firefighters
by Josh Dawson · CastanetA community association in the Tranquille Valley is hoping to use the site of a former school to train community wildland firefighters.
The former site of Tranquille Valley School is being sought after by the Tranquille Valley Community Association where they hope to use the land for a community hall.
Michael Grenier, Thompson-Nicola Regional District director of Area J (Copper Desert Country), said the association has been seeking the land since 2008.
“Now the school [district] is sitting there with a site where people formally were able to have what I call community,” Grenier said. “Whatever community is, they were able to do it at that site, and now they can't do it.”
He said the community association is hoping to use the property for wildfire training as well, with the goal of setting up a group of volunteer wildland firefighters similar to the Knutsford Initial Respose Team — a group of trained volunteers that helped battle the Rossmoore Lake wildfire alongside the BC Wildfire Service south of Kamloops in 2023.
“The ranchers around there said, 'We’re not going to sit on our hands and just watch this thing roll into us,'” Grenier said.
“The Knutsford group are the model for people who, pun intended, grabbed the bull by the horns and got themselves trained and led by example.”
Grenier said a group of volunteers in the Tranquille Valley are hoping to receive basic training in fire suppression, fire entrapment avoidance and safety.
“If we could have equipment, if we can do all that kind of stuff and perhaps we could utilize the site for both training and that sort of thing, but that would be a useful community function,” he said.
TNRD requesting lease
Grenier said he’s hopeful an agreement between the TNRD and the Kamloops-Thompson School District will allow the association to occupy the site.
Presenting to the SD73 board of education last year on behalf of the community association, Grenier requested the board negotiate an agreement for the use of the property.
“The board was very receptive to my presentation and said, ‘You have your people call our people,’” Grenier said.
Jamie Viera, TNRD general manager of operations, said the regional district has requested SD73 to lease the property so that it can work with the community association.
“For clarity, there’s no funding in place for a community hall, but the first step of going down that road of the dream of having a community hall would be to have property,” he explained.
He said the TNRD would be leased he property and the operation of the facility would be contracted out to the association.
No permanent school building stands on the property, and portables that were previously there have since been removed.
Held up with school district
SD73 tried to pass a bylaw allowing the lease of the property to the group, but it failed.
The motion required unanimous approval from the board to be adopted, but ultimately failed with SD73 trustees Shelley Sim, Jo Kang, and Kathleen Karpuk in opposition.
“We haven’t had necessarily any opportunities for the public to weigh in on this, and that perhaps by only doing one reading tonight that then gives the public an opportunity to present any concerns that they might have,” Karpuk said.
With the motion failing, the board went ahead with the first two readings of the bylaw. The third and final reading will be brought forward at a subsequent meeting.