Teaming-up to train new firefighters

SDG – Fire Services from four of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry’s six lower tier municipalities are embarking upon a new collaboration effort to train and develop new firefighter recruits.

South Dundas is among the four collaborators which also include North Dundas, South Glengarry and North Stormont.

“This collaboration is the result of a conversation among the region’s Fire Chiefs that has been evolving for over a year now,” said Bill Chafe, Deputy Fire Chief and Training Officer for the Township of South Glengarry. Glengarry is not leading this initiative, but rather supporting it administratively.

Together the collaborators are working together to train this year’s group of 40 new recruits.

Chafe explained that: the provincial firefighter certification requirements that the province has legislated will come into effect on July 1st of this year, and meeting these new requirements demands considerably more effort and resources than traditional methods of on-boarding new firefighters. “Fire Chiefs in our region have been discussing possibilities for some time now regarding strategies that can simultaneously reduce cost and strain on volunteer instructors within our departments, while also enhancing the quality of training for incoming recruits, and this collaboration does just that,” said Chafe.

Specifically, each participating department now holds the responsibility for instructional delivery of only two full weekends of training, making for a total of eight weekends for all incoming recruits.

“Historically, our South Dundas department has in recent years conducted sixteen to eighteen days of training for incoming recruits, which is very complex both administratively and logistically for a rural, volunteer fire department,” he further explained.

With this new initiative: “each of the four participating departments will now deliver only four days of training over two weekends. One of the benefits is that these four days will now be far better organized, and reduce the pressures on each department’s team of instructors.”

Two lead instructors from each of the four participating departments formed the committee that works together to plan the training weekends.

The lead instructor group met in person for the first time back in early November and has been meeting virtually on a regular basis since then.

South Dundas has 10 new recruits ready to participate in this new training endeavour that kicks off in February, and will see them participate in full day training sessions in each of the participating municipalities before culminating with written testing and practical skills evaluation in late June.