Volunteer firefighters practice vehicle extraction techniques during the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighter Association fire school in Humboldt over the weekend. Over 170 students from across the province met for three days of training. (Submitted photo/Becky Zimmer)

By Becky Zimmer

Valuable volunteers

Fire school brings over 170 volunteer firefighters to Humboldt for training sessions

Oct 16, 2023 | 12:00 PM

Humboldt played host to firefighters across the province last weekend during the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association (SVFFA) Fire School.

Over 170 firefighters from 44 volunteer fire departments from La Ronge to Carlyle took time to train with 30 instructors in 15 different sessions.

With 400 fire departments across the province, some of them looking after very small towns and RMs, Louis Cherpin, president of the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association, said these sessions are an important way for their members to receive valuable training and take it back to their own departments.

“My goal is that everybody goes home safe at night. So if we can give them a little bit of training, a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of anticipation, then they’ll be able to take that back home.”

With only eight career firehouses in the province in urban centres, the rest are made up of volunteers, especially in rural areas. Cherpin said there are roughly 7,000 volunteer members across Saskatchewan with SVFFA representing over 50 per cent of them.

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Having so many members come to fire school, Cherpin said they are all doing it for a great cause; protecting Saskatchewan residents.

“We know that they’re doing this for the betterment of their community and whatever they learn here today or at every other training opportunity we have, we know that communities can be safer and better.”

Spring and fall sessions take place across the province with every school moving to different areas to make it more accessible and financially feasible for departments to send their members.

Jay Wood, Deputy Fire Chief in La Ronge, attended as an instructor with Lieutenant Darren Arseneault but members of his department were very excited to be in Humboldt for the training sessions.

Seeing a better way of doing things and being trained on new firefighting skills to take back to their fellow members in their home communities is a great opportunity, he said.

“It gets everybody in the same place, networking and kind of seeing what other fire departments are doing for training,” he said.

As the deputy fire chief of the Willow Bunch Volunteer Fire Department, Kevin Pruden came all the way from the other end of the province to Wood.

The school provides excellent training for a reasonable cost, he said, which is important to the 500 residents they serve.

“For our ratepayers, it is important to be fiscally responsible, and the easiest way to do that is make use of people who are very well trained and do these schools at a very reduced cost.”

Networking with other departments and seeing what’s available for equipment and services at the trade show were two other highlights, Pruden said.

Nestled between the heavy-duty fire equipment booths was also Lori Balzer, clinical operations manager for the Internet Cognitive Based Therapy (ICBT) unit under the Public Safety Personnel Network (PSPNET) and Holly Schmidt with the Saskatchewan Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Network.

Both are mental health supports for all emergency service workers, including volunteer firefighters. Balzer said they have a great working relationship with SVFFA and the voices of their members have been important in ICBT research.

“We use those experiences to help inform our content so that it’s as relevant and real to life for them as possible. So we keep that relationship so that we can support them well and they can help inform that content so that it’s exactly what they need.”

CISM is an important peer-to-peer network that helps support firefighters and other emergency services personnel after a critical incident. Teams listen and offer resources to those who need it, said Schmidt. Being an EMS and volunteer firefighter herself is a benefit when offering that helpful ear.

“When you go there, they understand that you understand what they’ve experienced because you’ve been there, done that. They don’t have to explain the tools to us, they don’t have to explain what they did, because we already know.”

The next fire school will be hosted in North Battleford in the spring.

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim