Part three of a series on concerns with rural and remote firefighting.
See related: Going up in Smoke: working towards solving the fire response problem
Going up in Smoke: issues with rural fire response
From banding together to stop a building fire to now performing highly specialized rescues, the role of volunteer firefighters have changed over the years.
“Firefighting is not a type of activity that can be easily thrown together at the time,” said Duane McKay, fire commissioner for the province.
It’s now very technical and labour intensive, he said.
Today’s volunteer fire department responds to calls that are different than when people were just passing a bucket up and down the line to put the barn out, said Richard Kent, commissioner of emergency and protective services with the Prince Albert Grand Council.
Now they go way beyond the traditional scope, responding to ice rescues, river rescues, closed space and high angle rescues and chemical spills. The Buckland Fire Department, for example, is called out for vehicle extrication all along Highway 2 north and its branches.
The volunteer firefighters end up putting their lives at risk, said Kent.
“We don’t have volunteer medical services, we don’t have volunteer police services, but we still have volunteer firefighters,” he said.
For those that are involved, they are proud of their work and operate with their pride and passion, said Jim Miller, Buckland’s fire chief.
This works well for communities that have those people available, but that isn’t always the case.
“One of the biggest problems rural fire departments have is their volunteers,” he said.
“It’s taking more and more time and effort to try and make a living and volunteering in any form for any kind of club or group seems to be getting harder and harder.”
There aren’t a lot of people who want to be part of a volunteer organization where they get up at 2 a.m. to respond to a major accident or fire, stay up for a few hours and then go to work the next day, Miller said.
While there usually is some reimbursement or payment while the firefighters are responding to an emergency, it isn’t always the case —on reserve up to 80 per cent of firefighters don’t even get paid for responding — and no one receives money to be on call
“These people have other jobs, other businesses. They might have been out of the community. Nobody is getting paid to be on standby as far as I know,” said Kent.
It means the firefighters cannot be around all the time, he said.
In communities close to larger centres, it still could mean people can respond to calls, however in many northern communities, people aren’t in the area as their work takes them out to the mines, Kent said.
“Sometimes we get a call and we just can’t find firefighters, it’s unfortunate, but it’s just the way things happen some days,” he said.
There’s also a problem with transiency in fire departments — a community may have well-trained firefighters, but employment could take them elsewhere.
“That makes it difficult,” said Kent.
“You can have the newest unit that you can find and you can have the best resources you can find, but if you don’t have the people who are going to go out and provide the service, you don’t have much,” Miller said.
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