Close_call

Jeff Green | Aug 23, 2007

Back toHome

Close call in North Frontenac

Two days after the death of Bill Salmond, Deputy Chief of the Kaladar/Barrie Fire Department, in an accident that appears to have been caused by a brake failure on an older fire truck, a fire truck in North Frontenac was destroyed after it lost its brakes on a gravel laneway off of the Ardoch Road.

The truck was headed towards the clubhouse of the Canadian Sheld Golf Course when the driver, Jim Riddell, found that he could not stop. He struggled to negotiate two sharp turns before finding himself headed towards the lake.

“He saw cars and people at the lake, so he turned off the road into a bit of a hill, and then hit a tree,” said North Frontenac Fire Chief Steve Riddell in an interview.

No one was injured in the incident, but the truck, which was built in 1980, was a write off.

“The insurance adjuster came within a couple of days, and it should work out alright for us in the end,” Chief Riddell said.

The Kingston Fire Department lent North Frontenac one of their older trucks in the interim, so the department remains in a ready state.

But with two older trucks crashing for what could be the same reason within a two-day stretch, rural fire services locally, and perhaps throughout Ontario, are questioning the viability of their older equipment.