Yorkton Fire Protective Services was the host of the 2013 Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs Conference and Trade Show. Approximately 240 chiefs and deputy chiefs from across the province attended the show to meet and discuss the issues most important to their department.
Yorkton Chief Dean Clark says that it was a busy and valuable three days, as bringing together the province's fire chiefs provides a valuable opportunity to see what's happening throughout the province when it comes to major issues.
He says many of the issues facing departments are the same not just in the province, but across Canada, and that a conference like this is valuable to see if there are any answers and collaborate on facing the different problems out there.
The topic of training was one of the main issues for chiefs at the conference, Clark says, and that also provided the most questions and discussion among the different departments during the various sessions.
"You could tell that there is some passion for that topic."
Response borders and infrastructure were other big issues, as well as cooperating with the city council. He says that while Yorkton's Fire Protective Service has a good relationship with city council, this is not a universal across the province, and both sides need education to help better understand each other and serve their towns and cities.
"We've got people who are afraid of their councils, and councils who are afraid of their chiefs," he adds.
An important part of the event was the "bear pit" sessions, where the SAFC and members could ask questions of each other. Clark says that the SAFC is working towards a strategic plan and setting a direction, so a conference like this is important for getting that information from its members.
One of the speakers at the event was Duane McKay, Saskatchewan Commissioner of Emergency Management and Fire Safety. He spoke of some of the issues facing departments in the province now.
One problem that is worrying many in the province is flooding, something McKay says he didn't think would be his biggest concern in the fire service when he started decades ago. However, he says that right now the province has learned from severe weather in the past three years, and is better prepared than it has been before.
"Over 500 mitigative structures were put in place to control water throughout the province. Those coupled with the resources that we have such as sandbags, water tubes and equipment just to respond to floods are in place. It's well organized, we can move rapidly, we have responding teams. It's not that we're going to be able to respond to everything, but certainly we are well prepared both experience-wise and resource-wise," he says.
Technology is one of the big concerns into the future, and McKay says that his goal is to see even the smallest departments have GPS and tablets in order to more effectively do their job. He says there are a couple projects in the works, such as completely mapping out the province, as well as using the 700mhz band, which he says will make it easier to find locations where fires and other emergencies are happening, as well as report back home to manage them more effectively.
"We have been collecting a lot of data to support our dispatch system at the centralized level, now the challenge will be to get it out so the actual responders will have access."
McKay says that Saskatchewan is a provincial leader with things like 911 dispatch. He says that making it a provincial service has made for a system that is very stable, and is well funded in order to keep up with changing technology. Other provinces are now following Saskatchewan's lead, because they see how a well-funded 911 system can change and adapt. He notes that in the future he wants to see a centralized dispatch center, which he says would provide greater service and resources for less money.
When it comes to the Yorkton conference, McKay says it's always good to get fire protective services together, and that Yorkton has lived up to its reputation for putting on a good conference. Clark says that the success of the conference comes down to a quality team that got things accomplished.
"There are a lot of people who do a lot of good work to put on a conference like this, and I would like to thank them for their time and energy. Without their help we wouldn't have had the success that we did," Clark concludes.
