Holding the fire line over volunteers

The debate over the prospect of adding volunteers to the professional force serving Prince Rupert has heated up once again, in fact may be on the verge of overheating. In a front page story in Wednesday’s Daily News, Lorne West of the firefighters union seems to drop the gloves over the issue of the call for an auxiliary fire fighter pool from the City of Prince Rupert.

Following in the footsteps of his initial remarks on the issue in September, West heats up the rhetoric on the issue once again, by suggesting that there will be no savings to the tax payer by bringing on the volunteers. He dismisses the effectiveness and reliability of a volunteer pool and says that the city’s plans are going against the grain from the rest of the province where auxiliary and volunteer forces are being replaced by a professional force.

Perhaps the most incendiary of the comments in the Daily News piece were the ones questioning why the city is planning on the auxiliaries in the first place, suggesting that council is “just shifting it’s priorities around … so they can fund maybe a pet project somewhere or who knows what, but they're doing it at the expense of the safety of the community.”

Those comments will certainly get the mayor’s back up, last week he expressed dismay at the suggestion that the city wasn’t concerned about the safety of the fire fighter or that of the public. With the union dropping the gauntlet on that issue once again, it should make for a lively period of debate over an issue that the mayor had declared last week that, the rule would not be revisited by council.

One thing is certain, this issue is not going to go away any time soon, and the prospect of a volunteer base for the department is still very much in the air. Co-operation is a key ingredient for any new policy and at the moment, if the union rep is speaking for the membership it would seem that there is not a lot of confidence in that plan.

The issue will be on the front burner in Prince Rupert until city council explains the rationale used behind the volunteer plan, explains just how much they expect to save, what they plan to do with that money that is saved and how the plan impacts on the professional force and indeed on whether there is any possible danger to the public.

Last weeks information provided to the Daily News hasn't brought this fire under control, in fact it seems to have helped it to flare up a bit.

Mr. West has now provided some more talking points on the issue, it will be interesting to see if the Mayor and Council respond to them, or hold their ground and move forward with a plan that may not necessarily have the full backing of the fire fighters or the people they serve.

A public hearing on the issue would go a long way as to providing a blue print as to what the public might desire. It would provide a less heated time frame for both sides to provide their side of the story and then allow the public to decide what they feel is in their best interest. Sometimes a city council could use a little guidance; perhaps this is one of those times.

FIREFIGHTERS TURN UP HEAT ON CITY OVER VOLUNTEERS
Union claims there will be an inferior service and no saving to taxpayer
By James Vasallo
The Daily News
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Pages One and Three

A decision to hire auxiliary firefighters has nothing to do with being “cost effective” or protecting the pockets of taxpayers as the city claims, says the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).

“It’s almost morally corrupt to say ‘we’re going to reduce the burden of taxation to some degree by reducing the fire service’ because they’re not doing that,” said Lorne West, IAFF Western Canada vice-president.

“The only argument people have ever used to move from career to volunteer has been economic, but we have this movement in Prince Rupert and no one in the community is saving on their tax dollars.

“They’re not reducing neighbourhood taxes, they’re just shifting priorities around… so they can fund maybe a pet project somewhere or who knows what, but they’re doing it at the expense and safety of the community.”

Even if there were tax savings, West said most people would willingly pay the small amount necessary to have the security of the quickest response possible.

“(The city’s) suggesting that at about the price of a Big Mac per person we’re going to reduce the size of the fire department and we’re going to rely on volunteers,” he said. “They’re not reliable, they’re not consistent no matter how well we train them, we don’t know how long it will take them to arrive or how many will arrive because they have lives to lead as well.”

According to the IAFF, Rupert’s decision bucks the trend by most of the province’s fire departments who work to move from volunteer and paid-on-calls to full-time professional firefighters.

“The township of Langley and the City of Maple Ridge have both adopted master plans to transition from an all volunteer fire department to a career first response department,” said West, a 34 year veteran of Surrey Fire Department, which has also shifted from volunteers to career staff. “The rationale they’ve used is that the average response time to the scene of a fire for volunteers was 12 minutes and up.”

The fire propagation curve shows that the fire will move beyond the room of origin and spreads to other parts of the house within about 10 minutes,” said West.

“After a fire has exploded beyond the room of origin, those are more dangerous fights, they require more manpower and they face greater risks – that’s the argument for moving volunteer to career.”

While volunteers or paid-on calls can be helpful in certain situations, they’re not a proper substitute for a shift of four fire fighters who can respond from the hall, make entry into a house without waiting and quickly attack a fire - even if the city can recruit them.

“Most communities have trouble recruiting volunteers and I have heard that’s the case in Prince Rupert,” said West.

“What happens is then the community will take anyone that comes along. They don’t meet the physical standards required for the arduous task of fighting a fire, they don’t meet the academic standards for the significant knowledge required and they don’t have the time available to learn the technical skills needed.”

“Your volunteers, with the odd exception, aren’t capable of responding to the needs of the community.”

According to the IAFF, the city used to fund the fire department to the tune of 12 per cent of its annual budget, however that number is now below eight per cent.

“It’s a foolhardy decision made without any sound economic reason or basis. There’s no empirical evidence to back up what they’re doing, no measurable evidence suggests there’ll be a better service or they’ll be saving anybody in the community any money,” said West.

“The city of Prince Rupert is not about economic bottom line … and they’re certainly not making risk management decisions with sound economic reasoning.”

Selling the Solution: The City prepares its case for auxiliaries

With the issue of fire fighter and public safety a hot issue in the last couple of weeks, the City of Prince Rupert began its campaign to hire six people as auxiliary fire fighters to shore up the departments full time crews. Having earlier in the week expressed its outrage at the reports in the Daily News about the staffing situation, the City's plans now seem to be to provide a bit of information to the public about the departments desire to hire on auxiliary on call firefighters.

The auxiliary plan has long been in the works, but only recently reappeared as a going concern and now one moving to the recruitment process.

The Daily News provided an examination of what the city hopes to achieve with its auxiliary plans and how the previous attempt to recruit auxiliaries found that some of them left town to pursue full time offers in other centres.

While the city goes about its plan, what remains to be seen is what the reaction of the public will be to the project. The staffing issue that has percolated in town the last few weeks has proven to be a hot topic; we suspect that the bid to add auxiliaries to that mix will likewise be the subject of much discussion.

FIRE DEPARTMENT SEEKS AUXILIARIES
City begins new drive to find six people to bolster its full-time crews
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Friday, September 29, 2006
Page One

The city is looking for six new auxiliaries to supplement Prince Rupert’s full-time firefighters.

“We’ve compared other communities that have used volunteers and paid on-calls and provide a good level of protection, and in some cases they actually provide a larger trained fire force that’s available in significant emergencies,” said Mayor Herb Pond.

When you look at Prince Rupert, we’ve got a very highly trained force of full-time firefighters but we don’t have any depth for replacing them.

“Very clearly, we need to provide the right level of protection and do it in the most cost-effective manner.”

Pond cites examples like the large blazes at J. S, MacMillan and the Elizabeth Apartments as places where additional manpower may be invaluable.

“We had firefighters that were going back to the hall to grab a few hours sleep before returning to the fire and by the end, we had a pretty exhausted workforce,” he said of the incidents. “Part of having a few more people trained as paid-on-call is an opportunity to create more depth.”

This will be the second attempt at recruiting additional help at Prince Rupert Fire Rescue. The first round of recruitment saw six paid-on-calls trained, however four have since left including two who were hired away as full-time paid firefighters in other cities.

“It’s too bad that we lose those trained bodies but it’s great for them and it speaks highly for the training they’re receiving that other fire departments are eagerly snapping them up,” said Pond. “Without doubt, there is going to be more turnover amongst the paid-on-calls than the full-time staff, but somewhere in there we hope to reach a balance.”

Fire Chief Ron Miller explained there’s a full time training program the on-calls have to go through including live fire training to prepare the on-calls for fighting fires. The process takes about three months.

“We have got to get them to a stage where they have enough experience and training that they’re qualified to work on a fire scene,” said Miller.

“I’m hoping to get the remaining two to the live fire training early this fall.”

Those recruits will also eventually be offered training that will help deal with more specialized tasks such as dealing with hazardous materials.

“There are some special skills that are required,” said the fire chief.

“Our career staff already has special HAZMAT training and that’s part of the training that will eventually be made available to (paid on-calls).

“As they go through their training, as long as we can keep the dollars in place and get the specialized training in for these people we’ll bring everybody up to the operations level.”

While the career staff will remain the initial response crew, the paid-on-calls will provide more hands to fight major fires, said Miller.