Duane Hicks
Looking ahead to the future of the Fort Frances Fire and Rescue Service, Fire Chief Gerry Armstrong on Monday night presented town council with a comprehensive master plan for its consideration.
“The intent of the master plan is to fit hand-in-hand with whatever the corporate strategic plan might be,” said Chief Armstrong.
“Really, it becomes a strategic blueprint for the fire department,” he noted. “It gives us some direction as to where we are going to be with council over the next five-year period.
“As part of that, there’s not only financial plans in there, but there’s also plans all around the operations and how we see we may be functioning, what we’re going to do to sustain our present services in the future with operating costs going up.
“The second part of that is to meet our legislative requirements,” he added. “If we have any gaps in meeting our requirements in our services, it allows us to use the plan to fill those gaps.”
Under provincial legislation, the fire service must provide public education, fire code enforcement, and fire suppression.
Chief Armstrong noted a major component of the master plan is administrative, such as updating bylaws to be in line with fire protection legislation.
But other legislated requirements include the developing of a training site, for example, which already is being built and used at the Fort Frances Airport.
“We have to do live fire training—it’s a requirement right now. We have to do search-and-rescue, and those kinds of things,” Chief Armstrong explained, noting local instructors conducted a district training exercise at the new site last month.
The local fire department is able to provide this training because a number of firefighters here have become certified instructors. This has opened up doors of opportunity to help district fire services keep up their fire training, as well as build partnerships with private industry.
“We have a multitude of skills in the fire department—skills based around prevention and safety, which also are a requirement in private industry,” said Chief Armstrong.
“What we are doing now is we are starting to promote that—we can do these services for you, you don’t have to bring in a consultant from Toronto that you’re going to spend an arm and a leg on.
“We can do it for you at a shared cost.”
The master plan also speaks to more cost-sharing with district fire services to the west and east of Fort Frances, either administratively (which already has begun) or with equipment purchases.
“We’re getting to the point where if don’t start sharing costs, the costs are going to be too great for any of us to survive,” warned Chief Armstrong. “We have some things we can offer, if they can help us pay for it, we can provide services to all of the communities.”
He noted it makes more sense for multiple municipalities to share the cost of firefighting apparatus and co-ordinate how it is used.
“There’s no need to have brand new apparatus that generally ‘time out’ before they wear out, especially in the smaller communities,” said Chief Armstrong.
“We use ours more, but in smaller places, they never get used and yet they’re still worth over $250,000—the same that Fort Frances pays.”
The local fire service also will look to enhance its relationship with the International Falls Fire Department, as well as possibly aiding the Ministry of Natural Resources with suppression of wildland fires of nearby unincorporated areas.
The plan also speaks to staff replacement and development policy, and the need to replace retiring highly-skilled firefighters with well-trained new ones.
The master plan process started back in 2007, when the Fort Frances Fire and Rescue Service requested the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office come here and conduct a municipal fire protection information survey.
“They provided council with a detailed report on where they may be lacking in their fire protection,” noted Chief Armstrong.
“We actually did relatively well on that, other than administratively, where we were slightly behind,” he added. “We still have some catching up to do there, but we are doing our due diligence.”
Council adopted the report, and a master plan committee was struck.
The committee consisted of Chief Armstrong, firefighters Frank Sheppard and Joe Bobczynski, volunteer firefighters Tyler Moffitt and Todd Plourde, Community Services manager George Bell, Coun. Andrew Hallikas, and Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig.
The committee reviewed the report and worked to address any gaps identified, and look to long-term sustainability of services. From early 2008 to earlier this year, they met numerous times, and now have completed the draft.
“Even though it is still a draft, we think we have a pretty decent document put together,” said Chief Armstrong.
Council will review the draft and get back to Chief Armstrong with its input.
