BRFA station construction progressing well with targeted move Summer 2024 on track

Renovations at the new Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority hall for Bonnyville are on track and are hoped to be done in the spring.

Regional fire chief Dan Heney told Lakeland Connect he anticipates a timeline to complete those renovations in March or April.

The former Kopala building just west outside of town limits on Highway 28 will house BRFA Station 1 and 5, EMS services, 911 operations, and the administrative offices.

“We should be looking at trying to move some people in May/June,” Heney said. 

“The most important stuff has been done in that the water and sewer lines were brought across the building. The building is now connected to water. There’s still a few last pieces to go in making the sewer connection. The fence is up, the automated gates are on. There’s still some remaining groundwork to do. Just to make sure everything’s nice and smooth and level and do some paving. Put in the parking spots, those kinds of things.”

Part of the work that will continue after the spring is a server room that will house the capabilities for Next Gen 9-1-1. This component of emergency response service dispatch is mandated by the feds, and will allow for multi-media avenues of communication.

Three separate tenders were released, totalling in the range of $6.5-7 million in work.

The M.D. of Bonnyville agreed to loan $4.5 million to the BRFA to complete this work, while the Fire Authority will assume the rest of the cost.

“We’re right in the middle of it. Some of the work that I expected to be the most complicated and take the longest, they’re already into it. So there’s things happening and like I said, it’s hard to see from the outside, but we’re starting to get excited because there actually is work going on and there’s a couple areas where they’re almost down to the finish work already.”