Maryfield Fire Department fundraising for new truck
March 17, 2025, 1:40 pm
Ashley Bochek
The village of Maryfield, RM of Maryfield, and Maryfield Fire Department are fundraising for a new fire truck with the goal of raising $125,000.
There have been a lot of donations and contributions received but there is still about $50,000 to raise.
The new truck is an Oshkosh T-1000C Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Truck that will assist in grass and field fires as well as large structure and house fires due to the amount of water it can hold.
Sheldon Van Eaton, Chief of the Maryfield Fire Department, says the department recently received the refurbished fire truck from a Hutterite colony to add to their fleet of equipment.
Van Eaton says the department was in need of replacing an old fire truck that was no longer serving the needs of the area.
“We set in place a program years ago, a capital replacement program. The way we looked at it was, we have five pieces of equipment, five trucks in our hall, and in order to keep them modern and up to date we need to replace one every five years or so depending on need and also depending on the standards being put in place by the province.
“This new truck will make a difference. for us We’re just trying to keep up with the equipment replacement. The truck we are replacing is an older and out-of-date truck that wasn’t really meeting our needs and requirements anymore.
“The new fire truck will be used for grass and field fires, equipment fires, and some vehicle fires.”
He says the village and RM have helped raise funds to cover the cost of the refurbished new-to-Maryfield fire truck.
“The RMs and the Village of Maryfield have been putting aside money to help with these purchases over the last few years, so they help out in a big way with these purchases. They are a really big contributor to our equipment funding. Also, we have received some donations from local businesses and local people. We are currently canvasing for donations from companies and the public. If anyone is able to help, we really appreciate the support.”
A local fundraiser on the weekend helped raise some funds for the new truck.
“It was a little group of people that put together a little program to help with fundraising which is amazing, we are all excited,” Van Eaton said. “We had lots of people donate time and money. The transportation of the truck to Mayfield was donating by Foxtail Hauling out of Virden. The gentleman who went to go pick it up donated his time as well. The community has been very generous with the donation of their time or the funds to put toward it.”
Part of the $125,000 being raised will go toward renovations to the fire hall, the cost to inspect the truck, any modifications that may be needed, and the delivery cost to ship it to Maryfield.
History of new truck
Van Eaton says the refurbished new-to-Maryfield fire truck served in the Canadian military in the past, including time in Afghanistan.
“It is an ex-Canadian National Defense truck. It was purchased in 2001 from a government auction from the Winnipeg Air Force Base by Oak Bluff Hutterite colony and they had the truck refurbished at Sea Hawk—they do fire truck maintenance and repairs.
So they refurbished the truck and used it on their colony, and they had purchased another truck and had three when they only needed two so they put it up for sale. I saw the ad and we went from there. It is not a new truck, it is refurbished.
“The gentleman we bought it from told me that when he had purchased it, he was told that the truck had done some work in Afghanistan before flying it back here to Winnipeg.”
Van Eaton says the department is grateful for the support from the surrounding communities and excited to add a new addition to the fire hall.
“We do it because it is a really important service that is a benefit to our communities, and we do it because it is the right thing to do,” he says.
“We are very grateful for the support from the municipalities and the communities in general. We cover Mayfield and Fairlight and west to Walpole.
Everyone is very grateful for the support we received from across the area for putting this truck into our hall.”
Fire department has long history
Van Eaton says the fire department has served the Maryfield area for the past 120 years.
“I tried doing a bit of digging on it and I don’t have a definite answer, but what we can find in the history books is that there was some dispatching in 1951,” says Van Eaton. “In our old fire hall—that is no longer in existence—there was a horse drawn carriage with a tank on it that had ‘Maryfield Fire Department’ on it. There has been some sort of department here for possibly as long as 120 years—a long time.”
In need of young recruits
The fire department is looking for younger recruits to add to the fire department to help serve the community.
“I am the current fire chief. I have been doing it for about seven years,” says Van Eaton. “We have 17 members currently.
“Volunteers are challenging to come by in a smaller community,” he said.
“There are lots of people willing to help and there are lots of really good people that are trying to encourage younger people to join the department because it is a job for younger people. There are lots of people who are over 40 on the department and we would like to improve that. We have two or three younger members now. We have one younger lady who we are excited to have, and the other 16 are guys. We are really hoping to encourage younger people to join.”
Van Eaton explains the area the Maryfield Fire Department serves.
“It is loosely—not exactly—based on the RM divisions. So roughly, we cover the south four divisions of RM 91 of Maryfield and the east two divisions of the RM of Walpole. We are also in a Mutual Aid Agreement with Moosomin and with the Oak Lake Mutual Aid district which could have us answering calls as far north as St. Lazare and as far east as the Brandon city limits.
“I think we are equipped fairly well to cover the area that is marked out. The very farthest southwest corner of our coverage area does take a little bit of time to get to, but that is in an extreme case. The furthest possible call we would take would be about 30 to 35 minutes response time. It is a little bit challenging, but we are pretty comfortable with the area we have.”
Van Eaton says the biggest challenge for the Fire Department is recruiting younger volunteers.
“There are numerous challenges. Some of it being funding. The equipment prices and apparatus have skyrocketed, no different from other things we use day-to-day, so keeping it up-to-date and working with reasonably modern equipment as well as keeping people interested, and training up are big challenges.
Sometimes, we have lulls where calls aren’t coming as frequently, and interest starts to wane on the volunteers if we aren’t busy. Nobody wants to see fires, but unfortunately, they happen and that is why we have the department.”
Donations for the fire truck are tax deductible and can be etransfered to villageofmaryfield@sasktel.net or mailed to Village of Maryfield, Box 58, Maryfield, SK S0G 3K0
