ATHABASCA - Athabasca County councillors and representatives from STARS recently unveiled the first of what they hope will be many dedicated fuel caches for the helicopter pilots to use while they’re carrying out their vital work.
July 26 was a rainy day but that didn’t stop the excitement from showing on the faces of everyone that was there for the small ceremony at the Athabasca Regional Airport. Unfortunately, the ribbon hadn’t arrived yet, so the two parties had to settle for unlocking a padlock instead.
“This is something that looks so simple, but from an aviation standpoint fuel is one of the best weapons we have,” said Jon Gogan, who is the provincial operations director for northern and central Alberta and has also been flying for STARS for 22 years.
“When we’re up in this area, particularly at night, we have restrictions in place that require us to have enough fuel to get where we’re going, come back, and still have 30 minutes of fuel left over.”
The cache really is simple; constructed by ZS2 Technologies out of Calgary Alberta, the small shelter is fire and wind-resistant, capable of withstanding 60,000 pounds of force, and is easy to pick up and move should Athabasca get another fuel source.
“At first glance, our advanced building technologies may seem like overkill for a simple fuel storage building, but what better place to use the most cutting-edge technology than a building where quite literally every second counts?” said Kristin Davis, co-founder and COO at ZS2 Technologies in a July 27 interview.
“Working with STARS to help extend the range for these critical services further north has been a labour of love for our team at ZS2, along with all the other sponsors of this project.”
The fuel cache gives the pilots some much needed flexibility and coverage when it comes to calls in northern Athabasca County, but also in the surrounding communities like the MD of Opportunity and Lac La Biche County.
“This means that we can come up into this area from Edmonton and go up and get the patients before stopping here for continuing to at a trauma centre. It also means that crews from Saskatchewan and Grande Prairie can come into here as well,” said Gogan.
The project had originally been considered for Wainwright before a fuel source became available in Provost. From there, Jasper was the next consideration, but Parks Canada put a fuel tank in that location as well.
“We’ve always had Athabasca in mind, and there’s a few reasons for that,” said Gogan. “For one, there’s tremendous community support. Two, we’ve had more than a handful of scenarios where we’re coming into fuel caches at 2 a.m., and it turns out that they’re empty, or the barrels have been stolen. Those aren’t good situations, and having something that we know will be here is a fantastic weapon for us.”
“Right now, the aircraft that we fly has about two hours and 45 minutes of airtime,” said Gogan.
“This fuel cache was placed here deliberately; there are two really good approaches to the airfield where we can get down to within a couple hundred feet and do an instrument approach, and the location allows us to either continue north towards Wandering River, Calling Lake, or Wabasca, grab the patient, bring them to critical care, and then come back here. Or we can use the alternate fuel out in Slave Lake.”
Besides the collaboration between Athabasca County (particularly county parks foreman Whitney Chernish) and STARS, Gogan also wanted to thank the other companies that had helped them with the cache.
Red-L provided STARS with “deep” discounts on the fuel hose and pumping system, and Lincoln County Oilfield Services provided a picker truck at no cost to get the building into place.
