A new study is being done to try to determine if the people of Cherry Creek could get better – but potentially more expensive – fire protection.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District is looking into whether to add Cherry Creek into the existing Tobiano Fire Protection Area.

On top of giving direct fire protection to Cherry Creek, local area Director Ronaye Elliott tells NL News the added tax dollars from Cherry Creek could cover the ballooning costs of plans to build a new fire hall in Tobiano.

“To make it more viable for everybody cost wise, if we added the assessment of Cherry Creek to Tobiano, we would have a fire department that covers the whole area,” said Elliott.  “And then when we have things like we had last year, all the forest fires, there would be all those trained people.”

The Tobiano volunteer fire department transitioned from a society run department to a TNRD run department in 2019.

At that time the community also approved the borrowing of up to $1,000,000 for the construction of a new fire hall.

But according to the TNRD, since 2018, there have been many changes in the community including the ownership of the development as well as a boom in home construction.   “Due to increased construction costs and community needs the current loan authorization for the new hall is far below what is needed,” said the TNRD in a briefing note.

The TNRD also argues Cherry Creek is seeing rapid growth, suggesting there is a lot of interest in setting up a local fire department.

“Most recently, last summer there was a community meeting where the desire to have fire protection was strongly voiced,” suggested the TNRD in the briefing note.  “Recognizing Tobiano and Cherry Cheek are next door to each other, we feel it is prudent to properly evaluate the concept of having one fire hall and department to service both communities.”

However, Elliott says she’s not sure if enough support in Cherry Creek to team up with Tobiano for fire protection.

“There’s always been a resistance to it from the folks at Cherry Creek because there’s a lot of folks that have lived here for many years, and they didn’t want their taxes to increase,” she said.  “Fire protection is a very costly undertaking.”

The cost of any such merger will be borne out from the study, which is expected to take a couple of months to complete.