A small community west of Sault Ste. Marie is looking to the city for help with its firefighting needs.
Local officials in Prince Township say such an agreement will provide peace of mind for the 1,000 residents in community.
Township officials also say they currently have 25 members on the volunteer fire department, which is around the historical average.
However, many of them work during the day and are unavailable if a fire were to happen.
"We are under the mutual aid agreement, so if our firefighters are available and they need help, Sault Ste. Marie will come in and help them. But during the day, during the week, we have a lot of our firefighters that work in Sault Ste. Marie and some of our firefighters live in the City of Sault Ste. Marie. So, sometimes it's very difficult to get them to respond to a fire during the day, during working hours." said Peggy Greco, Chief Administrative Officer and treasurer of Prince Township.
Up until this point, there has not been an official partnership in writing.
"They've actually been very good to us. They have responded in the past in situations where they know we aren't responding. Because when the call out comes out, they know whether we're able to make it to the fire or not. So they’ve been very good to respond, but they wanted to set something formal in place."
Township staff says they have only had one fire call so far in 2018. While city crews did respond and help with the blaze, they don't expect that to be a regular occurrence."
Representatives from the City of Sault Ste. Marie declined to comment because no agreement is in place at this time.
