There was a full house Thursday in Ste. Agathe as a grand opening was held for the community's new fire hall.

Construction started late last year on what is now the third fire hall for the Rural Municipality of Ritchot. Mayor Chris Ewen says the construction of this hall responds to the growth in that community.

"Ste. Agathe especially has gone from zero to sixty over the past five years," says Ewen. "It's just a necessity to be able to say, if you move to Ste. Agathe you're going to have emergency responders."

Ritchot Fire Chief Scott Weir calls it a state-of-the-art building. It is a three bay hall with 14 volunteer firefighters. Weir says there was a lot of interest from the area and it really wasn't very difficult to find people to train for the positions. He notes at this point a Fire Chief has not been assigned for this specific hall.

Meanwhile, at Thursday's grand opening, the Office of the Fire Commissioner presented Fire Services Exemplary Service Medals for both Chief Scott Weir and Deputy Chief Paul Houle for their 20 years of service.

The other two fire halls in Ritchot are in St. Adolphe and Ile des Chenes.

"We would like to thank the fire hall working committee, the contractors, LM Architects, and Parkwest Projects for their craftsmanship to build this quality facility," says Lesley Gaudry, Community Economic Development Officer for Ritchot. "We would like to thank the sponsors for their contributions to the fire hall including Ste. Agathe Community Development Inc, H Baudry Construction, Wm. Dyck and Sons Ltd, G3 Canada Ltd, Caisse Populaire, BSI Insurance, Portage Mutual and Red River Mutual, Nutrien Ag Solutions and Ste. Agathe Electrical Services. We'd like to thank our public works department for their efforts. Last but certainly not least, we would like to give a heartfelt appreciation to the men and women who stepped up and signed on to take the training and to become volunteer firefighters so that our hall is serviced with capable and compassionate volunteers. If it was not for their effort, the hall would be empty. It is the people, the volunteer firefighters, that makes this service, and this hall possible."

There are still sponsorship opportunities available for businesses, as well as a family and friends sponsorship category. For further information, please contact Lesley at cedo@ritchot.com or text 204-803-2871.