Members of the Altona/Rhineland Emergency Services are reassuring the public of their dedication in serving the community.

The department issued the following statement on its website:

"On Monday February 5th, our 14 firefighters, 5 officers, chief and the Town of Altona CAO participated in a meeting. After positive discussions, we remain ready to serve you. We will continue on our current course of training for safe operations, planning for the changing needs of our residents and adding equipment/apparatus to better serve our communities.

We thank the resigning members for their years of service.

We wish to assure the residents of the Town of Altona and Municipality of Rhineland that we remain proud and ready to provide safe fire and rescue services to our communities.

Thank you for your support."

--- Tuesday, February 6, 2018 ---

The Town of Altona and Municipality of Rhineland are responding to social media comments concerning the local fire department.
    
Altona Mayor, Melvin Klassen, confirms the recent resignation of two officers and three fire fighters from Altona/Rhineland Emergency Services.

"While it is unfortunate that these members decided not to follow the same direction as the department, both the Town and the Municipality remain very confident that this will not impact the department's ability to respond to calls."

Altona/Rhineland Emergency Services continues to boast a 19 member fire department.

"We feel we have an excellent department. They have people that are dedicated and have served us well and we want to continue with that," added Klassen.

A prepared joint statement indicates this will be the only official public statement on the matter from both the Town of Altona and Municipality of Rhineland.