PUSLINCH – Puslinch firefighters had a heck of day on April 10, with three fire calls within four hours.
All of which had new Fire Chief Jamie MacNeil beaming about his crew.
“It was a good day,” MacNeil said in a phone interview. “The response from the team was great.”
The first call came in at 12:30pm – a grass fire at a home on Watson Road.
“We got that knocked down pretty quickly,” MacNeil said. “The homeowner worked with us and that was good.”
The scene was cleared in about 40 minutes and firefighters had just returned to the hall when a second call came in.
This one was at a quarry on Victoria Road, where a mobile crane was on fire.
MacNeil said Rockwood and Guelph firefighters brought in extra tankers with water to help get the fire under control.
Firefighters were on scene for about two and a half hours.
MacNeil said there was a retention pond on the property and that helped contain oil and gas.
The third call, at 4:30pm, was for a three-vehicle collision at Wellington Road 32 and Forestell Road.
There was no fire and only minor injuries to the people in the vehicles, so this wrapped up quickly as police and ambulance took over the scene.
Puslinch has a volunteer fire department, meaning firefighters have other jobs and special permission from their employers to leave work for fires.
They are paid for the time they are fighting fires and have the same training as full-time fire departments.
MacNeil said many of the team attended all three fires that day, and might have had to return to their regular jobs on top of that.
“I can’t say enough about how good these firefighters are,” he said.
“And in my 23 years in service, this is the first time I’ve attended a crane fire.
“Hats off to our volunteer firefighters.”
