Duane Hicks
Town council is undecided if the Fort Frances Fire and Rescue Service should get a sixth full-time firefighter.
During a budget meeting Monday, Fire Chief Tyler Moffitt said the addition of the full-time firefighter would allow both the Captain of Fire Prevention and Investigation and the Captain of Training to move back to straight days.
That, in turn, would double the fire department’s capacity to do fire inspections and fire safety education, and train two of the newer firefighters as well as volunteer ones.
Chief Moffitt explained there’s basically three things the fire department has to do by law: public fire safety education, fire prevention inspections, and fire suppression services.
But with only five full-time firefighters on staff right now, the department has not had the time to address all of these areas and continue to respond to the many calls as it does.
“We are a fire and rescue service,” Chief Moffitt stressed. “Gone are the days of just going to fires.
“We go to fire calls, motor vehicle crashes, med calls.
“Last year, we has 511 calls [and] 244 of them were med calls,” he noted. “Last month, there were 30-plus medical calls we went to.
“There was a case one month when we went to what [we] call ‘Level Zero’ calls where the ambulance is not available because they’re busy.”
Chief Moffitt explained training needs to cover the basics–orientation, and Level 1 and 2 standards–as well as areas such as hazardous materials, ice water rescue, and others.
“We just had a motor vehicle crash last week where two of our full-time members used the ‘Jaws of Life’ to open up a door so that the paramedic service could remove them,” he noted.
Fort Frances CAO Doug Brown noted the frequency of fire safety inspections is increasing, and the current five-man rotation does not allow the town to meet the demand.
“That frequency is going to change in the future,” he warned. “It might even be legislated.”
Chief Moffitt said that when he started with the local fire department back in 1987, there were 12 full-time firefighters, including the chief, and now staff is down to half of that.
The question was raised Monday that if the mill ever started back up, does the fire department still have the capacity to handle an emergency there?
“At this present state, no, because of our limited manpower,” Chief Moffitt replied.
He noted the composition of fire personnel from full-time to volunteer has changed due to economics, but this has its own set of challenges.
“What the challenge is, all across Canada right now, with volunteer firefighters is they all have jobs,” Chief Moffitt remarked.
“They’re either working shift work, four-on, four-off, they have families, they have vacations.”
In fact, he noted a lot of volunteer fire departments are “dying a slow death” because volunteers don’t have the time to complete the necessary training.
And here, just as elsewhere, it’s a challenge to get volunteers trained due to the time requirement and volunteers’ conflicting schedules.
Chief Moffitt said when there’s a structure fire, 10 firefighters should be able to respond within the first 10 minutes. But most fire departments in Canada can’t maintain that standard.
Looking ahead, one full-time firefighter here will retire in 2021, at which time the sixth firefighter–who will be fully trained by then–would replace that retiree, returning the full-time core group to five.
“No one gets fired, no one gets hired,” said Chief Moffitt. “And we’re in a better state.”
But Mayor Roy Avis wasn’t so sure.
“Once we get the training done, if we hire that sixth person, four years down the road how are we going to maintain that training with five people if you can’t do it today?” he questioned.
But Chief Moffitt noted that by 2021, the full-time firefighters should be trained to the point where they should be able to train others.
He also has a five-year plan to maintain training beyond 2021.
Council also has been asked to let the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office do an audit of the fire department, looking at staffing, equipment, procedures, and policies, and make recommendations as to where the service should be focusing and what could be done to improve operations.
Council split 3-3 on the vote for the new firefighter proposal (Coun. Wendy Brunetta was attending the meeting via speakerphone but as per the Municipal Act, she cannot vote if she’s not there in person).
It will revisit the proposal down the road.
