AUGUST 2026 succeeded. An agreement was signed in 2018 with Oyster River Fire Department to provide interim coverage while the CVRD worked toward a permanent solution. The path to that solution has not been without obstacles. Geotechnical issues forced a change in the building site. The mountain’s short build season – roughly six to eight months, due to snow and extreme weather – ruled out traditional construction methods. The solution was a prefabricated steel building, designed and coordinated with the involvement of Harold Engineering and Momentum Design Build. “The prefab model means we can have several things happening at the same time,” Bruce says. “We don’t have the luxury of building for 12 months up there. The prefab just made sense – we can have stuff being built offsite and then bring it up and put it together fairly quickly.” Assembling the project has required cooperation from multiple community stakeholders. Mount Washington Resort leased the land for the building at essentially no cost to the regional district. And the Vancouver Island Mountain Sports Society sold the CVRD the Mountain Centre, which will serve as the administrative hub – a place for training, administration, and overnight stays for firefighters when conditions require it. “A lot of moving parts and a lot of cooperation from many different entities made this happen,” Bruce says. “I think everybody saw the need and the desire from the public to get where we are
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