Crews are still looking for hotspots and battling fires in southeastern Manitoba. It’s been a tough week for crews who have had trouble communicating.
“Cell phone coverage is terrible. There’s a terrible problem in this area, I can’t believe this is 2011,” La Broquerie Fire Chief Al Nadeau told Global News Tuesday.
Dropped calls made the battle to save the Town of Marchand, even more difficult.
Last week, an out of control fire near the community of Caliento jumped Highway 12 and strong winds pushed it towards the village of Marchand. Two-hundred people like Robin Reimer were forced to evacuate.
“I was hoping it didn’t make it to Marchand and it didn’t,” said Reimer.
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“The only thing we could do is save lives and evacuate properties because there is no way we had enough resources to put fires out, it wasn’t happening,” said Nadeau.
While crews were trying to save communities, communication to the command centre was vital, but the lack of cell service even had a calm fire chief in a panic.
In a desperate attempt to reach the command centre, he broke into Marchand’s Convenience Store.
“There’s a store there I had to break into the use the phone, I needed a land line to start phoning people,” said Nadeau.
“They needed the phones and my husband’s a councillor for the area so they figured this was the place to break,” said convenience store owner, Debbie Chabot.
The cell phone service should be better.
Nadeau can see a cell phone tower from his house, yet calls keep dropping.
MTS Allstream says it is aware of the problem and say it’s currently in talks with the federal government in hopes of getting funding to put up more towers.
“Cost to provide service is quiet significant and we would, the proposals would help to bring the cost down to provide that infrastructure,” said MTS Allstream, Selena Hinds.
Fortunately, no one was hurt and no properties were destroyed. Residents do worry there will be a tragedy before improvements are made.
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