It has been a fairly quiet summer for the Killarney Turtle Mountain Fire Department but Chief Troy Cuvelier would still like to have a few more people available on their roster to answer calls.

The fire department has 19 members but Cuvelier would like to have 20 or just over that mark. “We like to be around 20 especially through the summer because of weddings and people taking holidays. We’re losing one of our younger fire fighters whose off the fire college this fall. We have harvest just around the corner and there always seems to something that comes up.”

Cuvelier says they always have room for more firefighters.

“We’ll never turn any volunteers away. We like to keep people training and our numbers up in the department. If anyone is interested we’ll gladly accept resumes.”

Besides the number of firefighters on the roster Troy Cuvelier is turning his attention to the fall and harvesting.

“We’ve had a bit of rain recently and I’d say conditions are between fair and medium and there’s a lot of green out there but in a week or two and crops start coming down there’s always a risk of seeing a fire.”

Cuvelier was quick to praise local farmers for their efforts to be preventative when it comes to fires on the farm. “Farmers in this area are great because they have water trucks, trailers with extra water and they carry a fire extinguisher on all their equipment. Sometimes that fire extinguisher isn't enough but if you can catch it that’s all it can take and get a fire extinguished quickly.”

“Being preventative can save a producer literally hundreds of thousands of dollars especially these days” said Fire Chief Troy Cuvelier.