Fortis Alberta is giving back to local first responders.

On Monday the energy provider donated almost $8,000 worth of radio equipment to the Heritage Pointe Fire Department which will further help in their future operations

Manager of IT Operational Technology at Fortis Rod Doornbousch says the donation of their radios is nice a way to help the community.

"A couple months ago we started looking at pulling some of the radios out of our trucks, the reason we pulled them out of our trucks because our service territory covers about 60 percent of Alberta and we can no longer service all of our territories with the frequencies who are on those radios," he says.

Captain at the Heritage Pointe department Cody Zebedee says communication is key in his line of work and knows the radio donation will improve theirs immensely.

"Having this donation will allow us to put additional radios into trucks also when we switch over AFRACS which is our new provincial radio system and it will allow us to keep our current systems up and running so we can communicate on the old and new systems to improve our operational needs."

Fortis has donated over $28,000 worth of radio equipment to organizations across the province since they started switching out their own.

"We're always pulling out and refreshing our equipment and we're always looking for opportunities to give back to the community," Doornboucsh says.

Radios have also been donated to Alberta Search & Rescue along with the High River Fire Department.

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