A house fire Thursday afternoon is raising questions about fire station boundaries.
Crews from Conestogo, St. Jacobs and Elmira were called to a home on Country Squire Road around 4:50 p.m.
86-year-old Gwen Murakami was pulled from the fire, and transported to hospital where police say she is in critical condition.
Country Squire Road is a boundary line between Waterloo and Woolwich Township. The house is on the north side of the street, making it part of Woolwich Township. It took ten minutes for volunteer firefighters from Conestogo, St. Jacobs and Elmira to arrive, but the house is only 1.4 km away from Waterloo Station 4.
“When you're that close to the city line and you have a fire department that’s brand new and just sitting up the street, I mean it’s pretty unfortunate they weren’t dispatched,” said Paul Murakami, Gwen’s son.
The stations do not have an automatic aid agreement. Under the agreement, a neighbouring station would respond if they could get to the fire quicker.
“Waterloo was approached back in 2011 and they did not want that automatic aid agreement,” Woolwich fire chief Rick Pedersen told CTV News.
Waterloo Fire say that decision was over a single project, not a long term agreement.
“We’ll certainly be investigating this matter further, and automatic aid agreements really, essentially are not simple. It’s not as simple as drawing a line on a map,” said Ryan Schubert, deputy chief with Waterloo Fire Rescue.
Schubert said they are open to future discussions.
Woolwich officials say they are proud of their response to Thursday’s fire. 20 firefighters were on scene within 10 minutes, and another 20 arrived two minutes later.
“We responded within our guidelines for crew response times and we had all the manpower and equipment that was needed to do the job,” Woolwich mayor Sandy Shantz said.
Woolwich fire officials say the fire was caused by careless smoking. Damage is estimated at $50,000.
