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Changes to fire service structure create higher costs for Mono: chief

July 3, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

A number of factors have contributed to the rising costs of fire protection paid by communities.

Fire protection is one of the fastest-growing items on each year’s budget, according to Mono Deputy Mayor Fred Nix, who represents Mono with Councillor Melinda Davie on the Shelburne and District Fire Department’s joint board of management.

The department serves Melancthon, Mulmur, Mono, Amaranth, and Shelburne.

Mono put 9.25 per cent of its tax levy toward fire protection services last year for a total of $118,818.

In 2015, the department’s total fire service cost was $767,000. Just a decade later, the department’s budget is about $1.7 million.

“That’s more than double what it was 10 years ago,” Nix said. “That, by my rough mathematical accounting, is about an annual increase of 12 per cent. When we do our budget, this sometimes raises some eyebrows.”

He wanted to know what the future looks like in terms of fire protection costs.

Dave Pratt, the chief at the fire department, said he’s been with the service since 1998.

“I’ve been around a while and I’ve seen lots of changes in the service,” he noted.

The fire department has always operated with the mindset to do the best possible with the tools provided.

Then an incident happened in Grey County in 2009 in which two firefighters were injured in a fire. Charges resulted from a Ministry of Labour probe into the incident.

“It was about a three-year legal battle and it was a paradigm shift, I think, for everybody in the fire service,” Pratt said.

There was a change in liability concerns at fire departments. The provincial fire marshal’s office changed its training curriculum. Pratt said the conversation in 2017 turned to community risk assessments and mandatory certification.

“Those were kind of the topics that were up in the air at the time,” he said.

Certification requirements were downloaded onto departments by the province, and associated costs followed.

Other factors are in play, too. Safety improvements in vehicles require newer specialized equipment for firefighters to respond to accident scenes. Firefighters are now tasked with flood emergencies, fast water rescues, and other work in varied environments.

“I think the modernization of the service in terms of equipment has a large value to it,” Pratt said. “In the early days, we were a fire department. We went to fires, put out house fires, grass fires. Most fire departments now are changing their name to Fire and Emergency Services because we don’t just respond to fires anymore.”

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