Igloolik to get fire truck after year-long wait

Igloolik’s long-awaited new fire truck has a ticket booked for this summer’s sealift.

The hamlet has been waiting for a new fire truck for more than a year after the vehicle didn’t make it onto the summer 2022 sealift.

The new fire truck, along with two water trucks and a bulldozer, are scheduled to arrive by sealift on Aug. 24, said Greg Morash, the hamlet’s chief administrative officer.

The truck was manufactured by Fort Garry Fire Trucks in Winnipeg and is one of four new fire trucks that have been purchased for four hamlets in the territory, according to an email from the Nunavut fire marshal’s office.

However, the arrival of a new fire truck will require the hamlet’s current fire truck, estimated to be about 25 years old, to be decommissioned at least temporarily.

That’s because the hamlet’s maintenance garage isn’t big enough to accommodate both trucks at the same time, Morash told Nunatsiaq News in July 2022.

A parking garage is currently used to service Igloolik’s municipal vehicles, but the hamlet is working on securing funding for a new purpose-built maintenance garage, Morash said.