Regional fire chiefs want more say in decisions
The Cape Breton Regional Fire Chiefs Association wants to be more involved in the decision making of the CBRM Fire Services and also wants improved access to training.
George Muise, chair of the association, presented its first direct report to the CBRM’s fire and emergency services committee this week. In it, he outlined some of the concerns of the association, which is comprised of chief officers representing all 34 fire departments in the municipality as well as the hazardous materials team.
Muise told the committee that the association’s members believe that the resources available at the volunteer service level are being “underutilized.” Involving the association at the fire services committee level is seen in a positive step, he added.
“There are many experienced, educated firefighters sitting within the volunteer ranks and we appreciate the opportunity to voice an opinion on any issue related to the fire service here in the CBRM,” he said.
Muise said it’s been at least 18 months since the executive of the fire chiefs association met with fire service administration to discuss issues within the service. “We believe that those things should happen on a regular basis, we believe that there should be a regular schedule of meetings to sit down and discuss some of these issues,” he said.
He said the association has worked on updating its qualifications policy, presented a draft to fire services in May 2016 and has been seeking to have the policy brought before the fire and emergency services committee.
In his written report, Muise noted that the qualifications policy requires particular levels of training for those members who want to hold officer positions within volunteer departments, but some of those courses have not been made available to volunteers. He said they plan to offer some training on evenings and weekends to accommodate the volunteers’ schedules. Incident command training has been offered Monday-Friday to the career fire service, Muise said.
Dist. 6 Coun. Ray Paruch suggested it would be good for committee members to receive issue papers addressing the two concerns raised by the chiefs association. That motion was carried.
Muise said the association has decided to take steps to provide more training itself. He said they plan to begin a mentoring program as well as look for opportunities to increase the training component within the volunteer ranks of the fire service.
Deputy chief Chris March, manager of training, said the incident command system 100 training is available online and open to all members.
There will be additional courses offered in the future that aren’t currently provided by the service, he added.
“I don’t see it that way, I don’t see it as we’re not providing the training that’s required,” March said.
He added most of the training that is provided to volunteers comes at the direction of the regional chiefs.
“When they tell me what training they want, that’s the training I provide,” March said.
Muise countered that it’s the higher levels of the incident command systems training that haven’t been provided, and the chiefs have repeatedly said that it must be offered on weekends to accommodate volunteers.
“I’m not talking about other types of training opportunities, I’m talking about specifically what’s mentioned in the qualifications policy,” he said.
The Cape Breton Regional Fire Service is a mix of professional, volunteer and composite departments. Muise previously noted volunteers make up 92 per cent of the current fire service.