{"id":8333,"date":"2025-02-19T20:08:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T00:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=8333"},"modified":"2025-02-19T20:08:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T00:08:59","slug":"greenfield-fire-chief-takes-stock-after-losing-two-trucks-in-weekend-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/02\/19\/greenfield-fire-chief-takes-stock-after-losing-two-trucks-in-weekend-crashes\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenfield fire chief takes stock after losing two trucks in weekend crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the trucks from the Greenfield and District Volunteer Fire Department that went off the road on Sunday en route to fighting a fire near White Point. (Greenfield and District Volunteer Fire Department Facebook page)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Greenfield and District Volunteer Fire Department may have lost two trucks on Sunday to icy roads near White Point, but its firefighters still helped battle a house fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Moyal Conrad described the dangerous driving conditions he had to deal with as his crews responded to a call for help from the Liverpool Fire Department.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We left here. It was a sunny day. There was no snow in the air. The closer we got to Liverpool, the snow was coming down. Reports were the house was fully involved and the roads were treacherous. I was driving the first truck for Greenfield. The road was really, really slippery. The first turn we almost didn’t make. I went in about a couple hundred yards and stopped and rethought my choices. We were only hundreds of yards away from the scene, so we proceeded very, very cautiously. Every turn we tried to make, the truck had a mind of itself.<\/p>\n

“The front tires would not steer at all. Every time we went towards the ditch until we hit the hard crushed snow and it bounced back on. … There was a downhill turn at the end and as we were going down the hill, she just kept sliding, sliding, sliding and she just got to the edge and all of a sudden the front tires caught the hard snow and bounced back on the road. When it did that, it slingshot my ass end then my truck into the ditch. <\/span>It put a brand new 2023, million-dolar truck into the ditch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conrad was in the truck with his son Brandon, who is also the deputy chief. The chief says he\u2019s grateful they escaped unhurt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I was basically holding on to him saying, ‘Oh my god, we’re going off, Brandon.’ It’s a very sickly feeling when you have no control of what you’re driving.”<\/p>\n

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The other tanker truck from Greenfield that went off the road on Sunday in icy conditions. (Greenfield and District Volunteer Fire Department)<\/p><\/div>\n

Firefighters from Liverpool, Greenfield, North Queens, Port Medway and Mill Village responded to the blaze off the White Point Road on Sunday. That was during a freezing rain warning, which made already slick side roads in the area even more dangerous.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conditions were so bad that a salt truck also ended up in the ditch.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Greenfield department sent two tankers. Soon after Conrad\u2019s truck left the road, another tanker from Greenfield coming the other way also slid off the road and landed on its side.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody was injured in either case. And two of the crewmembers from the second truck walked to the scene and spent the rest of the day helping fight the fire, even though it was difficult to stand on the icy roads.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they fought fire for the rest of the afternoon and the evening and our rescue truck come along with four other firefighters that made it to the scene and they were on scene fighting fire all afternoon, all evening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Conrad says the truck he was driving was a newer model the department bought in 2023. He believes that one can be fixed. The other tanker was an older model from 2017 that was extensively damaged and will probably have to be replaced.<\/span><\/p>\n

A new tanker truck costs about $1.2 million, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said he hopes insurance will help cover the costs of repairs and replacement. And there may be some money available through the Region of Queens, which provides up to $425,000 over 10 years for new equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n

But any insurance payout will cover only what the department paid for the truck, not its replacement cost, Conrad said. So, the fire department could still be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of that would have to be raised through the volunteer firefighters\u2019 fundraising efforts like community breakfasts or the Nova Scotia Firefighters 50\/50 draw<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to think a lot of things out,” Conrad says. “Queens County doesn\u2019t have a big tax base. We do not have a lot of money to work with. We do a lot of fundraising just to keep the lights on. We have to flip a lot of eggs sometimes in order to buy these trucks.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conrad says they get about $80,000 a year from the Region of Queens to help run the department, half of which goes to keep the hall open.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat does not buy equipment, that does not train my men. All that stuff is done by the great people of this county when the fire departments put out their hands (for fundraising) \u2026 If it wasn\u2019t for the fundraising, us out here in the country, it makes it hard to be able to purchase stuff. We had a truck plan and that truck plan has gone right out the window at the moment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, he said he\u2019s hopeful that things will work out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn a good note, in the last two days, I\u2019ve taken a ton of calls and emails from people who want to help out. I just got a message from a fire chief in Prince Edward Island who wants to help us out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And he said the neighbouring North Queens Fire Association has loaned them one of their older tankers. So, he said the Greenfield department is still able to respond to fire or medical emergencies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not defeated yet. We have the gear and we have the trucks. Members are keen. I don\u2019t want to take away from anybody else\u2019s fundraising, but think of us the next time we have a breakfast or something and come out and help us out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/greenfieldfiretrucksupdatefeb1925.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Greenfield and District Volunteer Fire Department may have lost two trucks on Sunday to icy roads near White Point, but its firefighters still helped battle a house fire. Chief Moyal Conrad described the dangerous driving conditions he had to deal with as his crews responded to a call for help from the Liverpool Fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2902,1134,91,2905,1546,124,1668,2903,2532,49,24,2906,2904],"class_list":["post-8333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-chief-moyal-conrad","tag-emergency-services","tag-fire-department","tag-fire-rescue","tag-fire-truck","tag-firefighters","tag-greenfield","tag-greenfield-and-district-volunteer-fire-department","tag-moyal-conrad","tag-queens-county","tag-region-of-queens","tag-tanker","tag-volunteer-firefighters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8338,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333\/revisions\/8338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}