By KEVIN BERGER, Journalism Initiative
Concerns over the possible mismanagement of a grass fire that occured south of Dalmeny in early May prompted RM of Corman Park councillors to vote 5-4 at their October 28 meeting to cover the entire $67,823.78 bill for fire services, sparing three ratepayers from having to cover a portion of those costs.
Previously, council had received a presentation at the September 9 administration meeting from several landowners in the Dalmeny area regarding the invoices they had been sent for firefighting services.
On May 3, 2025, a grass fire spread through three parcels of land at 30-37-6-W3, although there reportedly were subsequent rekindling events on May 4 and May 8. The fire apparently began in a ditch along Township Road 374, which would be RM property.
As a result of this incident, two ratepayers had been billed $30,000 (which is the maximum ratepayers can be asked to pay under the RM’s bylaws), while the RM was going to cover the remaining $9,616.05.
The landowners reported at the September 9 meeting that they were not involved in starting the fire and they had offered to help, but were turned away by the firefighters on the scene.
“I would like to know why farmers offering help were turned away as the fire could have been under control very quickly and not spread further,” stated Aaron Van Ee in an e-mail to the RM.
At the September 9 committee meeting, councillors directed administration to investigate how a previous ditch fire along Range Road 3065 had been handled. However, administration determined this incident was resolved with private community intervention and thus no one was billed for fire services.
After re-visiting the matter at the September 23 council meeting, administration was directed to provide a full breakdown of the invoices sent to the landowners.
Accounting manager Krista Clark presented that report to council at the October 28 meeting. She indicated that four fire departments had responded to the original incident (Dalmeny, Saskatoon, Langham and Martensville), while Saskatoon was involved in responding to the re-kindling events.
It was determined that Martensville’s invoice had actually been for two separate events, which prompted a slight reduction of the bill from $69,616.05 to $67,823.78.
Clark said a bylaw officer had also gone out to investigate the scene in July, and based on the damage observed, that investigation resulted in a third ratepayer being invoiced.
It should be noted that the $67,823.78 bill includes a $20,768.81 “backfill fee” charged by Saskatoon.
Noting there were actually three different fires in the RM on that day, Clark said the Saskatoon Fire Department charged that fee as per their contract with their RM “because we were using such a large portion of their resources that day.”
Clark presented council with four options for handling the invoicing: to split the $67,823.78 bill equally between the three ratepayers, which would cost them each $22,607.93; to split it equally between the three ratepayers and the RM, costing each party $16,955.94; to exclude the $20,768.81 backfill fee and then splitting the remaining $47,054.96 between the three ratepayers; or to exclude the backfilling fee and then split the bill between the three ratepayers and the RM, costing each $11,763.74.
Administration favoured the third option, as it would reduce the impact on the ratepayers and maintain compliance with the RM’s bylaws.
However, Division 4 Councillor David Greenwood put forward a motion to cover the entire $67,823.28 bill out of the RM’s firefighting budget, noting that it was his understanding that the management of this fire had been “a bit of a gong show.”
He added, “It wasn’t a matter of fighting fires; it was a matter of standing around and not doing their job.”
Division 5 Councillor Arthur Pruim also said he felt he could support forgiving this bill in light of the potential mismanagment, which differentiated it from other situations where residents are billed for firefighting services.
“For those reasons, I can side with the ratepayers on this one … versus other instances,” he said.
Division 2 Councillor Saleski opposed the motion, stating that it didn’t make any sense to him for the RM to be out $68,000 for this bill.
“We’re not Santa Claus. We don’t have unlimited funds we can just throw out to the car window and say, ‘Here guys, come and grab it,’” he said.
Division 6 Councillor Steven Balzer also stated that he could not support a full covering of the costs and instead backed administration’s recommendation of Option 3.
This graphic, which was included with the agenda package from the October 28 Corman Park council meeting, shows the approximate area of the grass fire based on a post-fire inspection done by a bylaw officer in July.