It's fire prevention week here in North America, with the focus being on fire hazards in your kitchen.

Lacombe County's Fire Chief Drayton Bussiere says fire prevention week also happens to run alongside harvest time, and while the kitchen is commonplace for fires in the home, fires out in the field can be devastating and costly.

“We always like to remind everybody to make sure exhaust systems are clean and in good order, that they are not parking hot machinery on top of dry grass or dried fields. Regular maintenance and cleaning off the dust and chaff and combustible off their machinery.”

He says having a full charged and fire extinguisher on all farm vehicles can be the difference between a small grass fire, and an expensive loss of crop and equipment.

Bussiere says both them and local fire halls all around Central Alberta are also in the middle of a recruitment drive for anyone interested in joining their ranks.

“It can be a decent amount of commitment for sure. So we do training usually once a week and then we do have some minimal training requirements. We do offer the NFPA training tool to all of our member, which is an internationally recognized standard of fire fighter training. We do those in-house, but it is an accredited training program so you can get certificates that you can bring with you pretty much wherever you want if you continue to be a fire gather volunteer when you move away or if you decide to pursue that as a career.”

He says with an average of 60-100 calls a year, their on-call schedule can be difficult to predict. They are making a bit of a shift in the way they are compensated financially for their work to help make up for any concern about wages lost if a volunteer needs to be taken from their full-time job to help battle a blaze.

They are also in the middle of a recruitment drive, more information on that can be found by clicking here to go to the City of Lacombe’s website, or click here to go to Lacombe County's website.