On Saturday October 5, the Manitou Fire Department celebrated its 50th Anniversary, and paid homage to one of its advocates.
The late Glenn Jourdain was celebrated as an honourary member of the Manitou Fire Department, with a plaque commemorating his involvement. Presented to his widow Genny Jourdain and son, Curtis Jourdain,
Curtis says his dad, was a “driving force” behind the Fire Department.
“My dad kept joking, [he was hired for] a three-month contract, and it was still a three-month contract [when he retired,]” said Curtis. “He continued to pry them to get going, to get some community prevention and some awareness of fires into their community so that it would keep their community members safe.”
Genny remembered the early days, when Glenn was working to get a fire department started.
“I don’t know if it would have gotten going without him. He was really good at it. He was a talker,” she said.
Frank Shepherd is the current Fire Chief of the Manitou Fire Department. He was asked to come out of retirement to reinvigorate the program.
“They asked me a year, a year and a half ago, to get involved with the community to try and rejuvenate and expand some of the roles that they have here,” he said. “Generally speaking, it’s been a very positive community group.”
However, like most communities, recruitment, retention and continuity of knowledge have been struggles over the years.
“Every time we lost a senior person or a person that was in their retirement years, it’s not that they were the best firefighters in the face of the earth, myself included, but, there’s a certain amount of consummate experience that sits there,” said Shepherd. “That experience and that time goes with them.”
Shepherd remains optimistic about the future of fire safety in Manitou, with plans to implement a first responder program and a mutual aid agreement, which could help fill some of the gaps left with the recently reduced ambulance services across the Rainy River District. Last year, they launched a first responder group, and they recently obtained a vehicle which, although isn’t a fire truck class, can respond to emergencies, and allow the team to “pick up some of the distance created by a lack of ambulance services.”
“The ambulance service, district wide, has suffered some real staffing limitations,” said Shepherd. “It’s a real issue. The lack of services is a real problem for this community.”
“I don’t know exactly where it’s going to end. I’m hoping the province can come up with some kind of an alternative, rather than just saying, ‘We’re going to close and cut services. That’s really unacceptable.”
Shepherd is also taking steps to re-establish Manitou’s link to mutual aid. Under that program, neighbouring fire departments agree to lend personnel and equipment, when they can spare it, to help shore up each other’s forces, and reduce response times.
Glenn Jourdain as an honourary member.
“Manitou ended up having to fall out of mutual aid just because they weren’t able to maintain a service level. So, I’m really pleased to be able to rectify that,” says Shepherd. “We’ll be going back to mutual aid and looking to get accepted into the plan. So, it’ll be part of a larger district-wide plan.”
According to Shepherd, the plan is to resume the co-operative service in November.
“I truly believe over the long term, communities have to plan a co-operative model because the costs keep going up, the resources keep going down, and the expectation for services also increasing,” he said. “You’re either going to co-operate and survive or stand within your own silo.”
