Fire Service comparisons between Prince Rupert/Terrace, local service arrangements make for Council Budget Discussion sidebar

Some themes related to Fire Protection in Prince Rupert made 
for some discussion at Monday's Council session

The theme of Fire Protection in the community made for a short conversation around the larger topic of the 2024 City of Prince Rupert budget on Monday evening, the Conversation starter coming from Councillor Teri Forster who noted of one of the correspondences from the Budget simulation program. 

Towards that the Councillor sought out some clarification on the similarities or differences between the Prince Rupert Fire/Rescue service and that in neighbouring Terrace.

"Someone made the comment that Terrace Fire Department is volunteer, my understanding is that the Terrace Fire Department is not volunteer but the Thornhill Fire Department is volunteer, is that correct?"

Mayor Pond fielded that question with a short overview of the differences between the two services.

"I think Terrace and believe me if there is somebody in the room can speak even more accurately than me, but Terrace has full time complement smaller and then a volunteer fire, so they do have professional firefighters but they don't have the full complement that we have of twenty something"

Councillor Barry Cunningham followed up with an account of a conversation he had with the Terrace Fire chief.

"I actually spoke to the Fire Chief there today, they have twelve full time and they're going to more. And they have eight volunteers and the eight volunteers are now being paid ... on a call out basis and that's paid for training as well as called out to a fire.

So you. know, the conception that Terrace is strictly volunteer is totally wrong. Thornhill is volunteer, but Terrace like us responds to fires in Thornhill  as a service agreement"

The Councillor also returned to a topic he addressed at the last Council session, that related to services that the Prince Rupert Fire/Rescue Department provides to port related properties.

"I brought it up last meeting about the budget and us responding to Port properties and that, when we don't have a service agreement with them. 

Now two questions. 

I don't know if we can answer here is liability of our firefighters when they're on property where we don't have a service agreement  with them. 

And the other thing is do we charge these people back when we do go to attend a fire, a property asset fire in those areas."

Chief Financial Officer Corinne Bomben who was also serving as Acting City Manager on the night, for the vacationing City Manager Rob Buchan, provided some observations to the Councillors questions.

"I can say that our Fire Chief would not put the staff in harms way for something that they are not trained for and that we only respond presently to office building type fires we wouldn't respond any special emergency response, they're not trained for that" 

Mr. Cunningham did note that in at least one instance in the past, the PRFD did respond to a fire at the Drax, then Pinnacle Pellet plant on the waterfront, that a reference to a 2021 incident at the facility. 

Ms. Bomben's reply reinforced that the fire service would not respond to a fire that they were not trained for.

"Yes, but I'm not qualified to be able to say whether that's within their training, I would imagine so or else they wouldn't have asked them to respond to that"

Mayor Pond noted how the answers to those concerns may soon be coming back to Council in the future.

"I was going to say that if Dr. Buchan was here, he would talk more fully about  the fact that a bylaw will be coming back to Council, clarifying precisely what it is that we are prepared to do for our industrial clients and members of the community.  

And it does very much ensure that our firefighters are not put in a position  where they are liable for work that is outside of their scope, or training or equipment"  

The short tutorial on Fire protection in Prince Rupert can be reviewed through the City's Video Archive starting at the six minute Mark.

More notes on the Monday Council Session can be reviewed from our Session archive page.

Some of the work of the Fire/Rescue services of the Northwest can be reviewed through our Emergency Responders Archive.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.