Fire service seeks a few good people

Yorkton’s fire chief made a pitch to business leaders last week to help him beef up the depth of his department’s response capacity for major emergency events.

At a Chamber of Commerce breakfast September 8, Trevor Morrissey said the department has been trying to hire paid on call firefighters, but one of the main obstacles he is encountering from potential recruits is fear their employers will not support their participation.

While he appreciates some business owners may see giving their workers leave to sign up as a potential disruption, the chief appealed to their civic pride citing benefits to the community and their own business if something should ever happen.

The move to hire more “temps” was one recommendation of a departmental review conducted by the City and Toronto-based Dillion Consulting last year.

Morrissey noted having paid on call firefighters has already saved the City significant overtime costs.

He asked the attendees at the breakfast to consider who in their organizations may be potential candidates and help him spread the word.

“We’re looking for people who are physically fit, people who want to help their community, people who are looking for a way to build their skillset in a very broad range, people who can make a bit of a time commitment and really want to get involved and help,” he said, adding training will be provided.

In fact, he said, some of the people who have held these positions in the past have gone on to professional firefighting careers.

Morrissey noted that while fighting fires is the most exhilarating part of the job, viewing the aftermath of destruction and sometimes death is the most deflating. Preventing fires from happening in the first place is the fire departments number one priority.

From there, it is ensuring immediate and professional response to nip fires in their “incipient stage,” before they spread causing major havoc, damage and injury. For that they have four full-time professional firefighters on shift 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and backups if escalation is required. The bigger the event—which include not just fires, but motor vehicle collisions, weather events and natural disasters—the more people required to deal with them and that’s where the paid on call firefighters come into the picture.

Also noted as a deficiency in the consultants’ report was a capacity to deal with certain types of facilities, such as nursing homes, where a large number of people might require evacuation.

More information is available by emailing [email protected] or calling 306-786-1795.