The Blue Mountains Fireplace Division continues to expertise challenges with recruiting and retaining firefighters.

In 2022, the division had simply 22 volunteer firefighters (often known as paid-per-call firefighters) with 15 serving on the hearth corridor simply outdoors of Thornbury and eight on the Craigleith station. Volunteer firefighters usually are not full-time hearth division workers and reply to calls as wanted.

In 2018, the division had 46 whole volunteers and in 2014 they have been 48.

Fireplace Chief Steve Conn offered the numbers on the council’s committee of the entire assembly held on Jan. 10. Chief Conn and Neighborhood Emergency Administration Coordinator Diana Livingston made council orientation shows on the assembly.

“We’re about half our historic whole we have usually had previously,” stated Conn.

The chief stated the recruitment of volunteer firefighters is a matter throughout the native area, the province and even the nation. He stated domestically, the excessive price of housing is a barrier to recruitment. He additionally stated native rural hearth departments are dropping their volunteers (The Blue Mountains has misplaced 36 volunteers over the previous ten years) to full-time firefighting jobs with bigger city departments in Toronto, Barrie, Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville and different locations.

Conn stated in Toronto, for instance, they recruit 96 new full-time firefighters each three months.

The turnover and low numbers have made it troublesome for the hearth division to advance firefighters into supervisory positions, stated Conn.

The chief stated the native division has carried out a piece expertise program to help with the recruitment of recent volunteer firefighters. This system supplies housing to recruits in change for them working domestically as firefighters gaining expertise in addition to coaching and certifications wanted. Conn stated this system has been profitable in different resort-style areas and can price roughly $136,000 in 2023.

CAO Shawn Everitt echoed the chief’s issues in regards to the recruitment and retention of firefighters.

“It is turning into tougher yearly,” stated Everitt, who famous that the native hearth division suspended two vital packages in recent times – marine and excessive/low rescues – because of workers points. “It was just because we do not have the workers. The coaching is important.”

Everitt, a former volunteer firefighter himself, stated the calls for on the division proceed to develop. He stated not a few years in the past making a number of hearth calls on the identical time was a uncommon incidence. Now, it occurs increasingly more typically.

“It’s vastly taxing on the assets we now have,” he stated.