Firefighters in the Rural Municipalities of Stuartburn and Emerson-Franklin are close to signing a Mutual Aid Agreement with their American neighbours. The agreement would mobilize up to 50 firefighters on either side of the border to assist in extinguishing a fire too great for one department to put out by itself.  

When Scott Olson became the Emergency Manager of Kittson County, Minnesota, a few years ago, he says he was surprised at the lack of interaction between his fire crews and those in the province of Manitoba. “Sometimes it seemed like the world just sort of ended there."

While forming a partnership was on his radar from day one, Olson says a fire that tore through one of his local communities back in 2018 really ignited his efforts.

“We had a wildfire in Clow Township that ended up going into Canada,” he recalls, “at the time, it was kind of a big deal, and tankers all the way from Kenora had to come out.”

Observing the vigour and tenacity that his Canadian counterparts used to beat back the blaze convinced Olson that a Mutual Aid agreement was, in fact, a mutually advantageous move. Immediately, he began compiling documents, contacting politicians, and reasoning with border services agencies on either side of the 49th parallel.

At its essence, The Mutual Aid System is a reciprocal system of emergency response that gives a community access to another community’s fire department, when the need is great, at no additional cost.

“It’s been my labour of love for the past two and half years, trying to get this thing finalized,” he says, “and we are very very close now.”

The American and Canadian Border Services Administrations have agreed to give the firefighters 24/7 gate access along the Tolstoi-Lancaster crossing.