Archive

Firefighters share staffing concerns with recent emergency calls

March 10, 2022   ·   1 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

A local full-time firefighter and former volunteer firefighter have expressed concerns over three emergency calls from early February.

They say there’s been a reduction of service due to the termination of four out of 21 trained volunteer firefighters on Feb. 11, who were removed over the Town’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.

Nothing serious occurred and no one was hurt in each of the incidents but it’s seen as taking a risk and getting lucky, according to the former and current firefighter.

“A lot of times you’re rolling the dice with your staffing, and you’re just hoping that you’re not going to have a bad outcome,” said the local firefighter.

He told the Citizen, on the morning of Feb. 3 there was a multivehicle crash with people trapped inside their vehicles on Highway 10, north of Hockley Road who had to be cut out. Best practice for this type of call is to dispatch four trucks so traffic can be blocked and there’s enough personnel and equipment there, providing safety to firefighters and patients while they run emergency responses.

The dispatch was at 8:22 a.m., which would have gone out to all available firefighters, and while the first truck was on the scene within eight minutes, it took 17 minutes for a second truck to even leave the station from the time of dispatch.

There were not enough firefighters to staff a third truck.

Shortly after the second truck arrived on scene to assist, Orangeville fire services were dispatched to an additional vehicle accident, which was a dump truck rollover with one person trapped inside at Hwy 10 and 4^th Ave.

As there was only one firefighter available at the station and four are needed to dispatch another truck, the two trucks that were dispatched to the first vehicle collision had to leave the scene they were currently at and respond to the second incident.

Both situations were mitigated successfully, but for over an hour, from 8:22 to 9:25 a.m., Orangeville didn’t have enough local firefighters available to respond to other calls. If another car accident or emergency call came in during that time, the Town would have relied on mutual aid, calling in firefighters from departments in Grand Valley, Mono, Shelburne, or Caledon.

The recently terminated firefighter said he was available that morning as well as two of the other members who were removed from the force over the Town’s vaccine policy. The three of them plus the one firefighter at the station would have been able to dispatch another truck to better staff the ongoing emergencies and mitigate any additional ones, instead of relying on mutual aid from neighbouring municipalities, who would be travelling far greater distances.

“It takes much more time for outside departments to get there and seconds count in an emergency,” said the local firefighter. “So in Orangeville, you’d think we would really want to have as many of our own people there because they get there faster, and they would be more familiar with the response area.”

He also noted that all of the municipalities that Orangeville relies on for mutual aid have rapid antigen test policies in place instead of a mandatory vaccination policy.

Meanwhile, the following day on Feb. 4 there were two calls of concern, according to the local firefighters.

At 6:30 p.m. firefighters were dispatched to Island Lake Elementary School for a fire alarm activation, which is treated as a fire until proven otherwise.

Communications between the station and command about 12 minutes after the dispatch indicated that there weren’t enough firefighters available to send a second truck to the scene. The crew that was on site investigated and thankfully they determined it to be a false alarm so everyone stood down.

The local firefighter said best practice is to have 10 staff on the scene within 10 minutes if it’s a real fire.

A few hours after the Island Lake School incident, at 10:30 p.m., Orangeville Fire Services received a report of a structure fire at 66 Broadway, where there was smoke in the building.

A second truck was staffed and able to be on the scene, however a third truck couldn’t be dispatched.

There were only eight members who made it to the scene, while the standard would require 15 firefighters there within nine minutes.

All four of the recently terminated volunteer firefighters were available for these two incidents and would have been able to staff their own truck, the local firefighter told the Citizen.

Fortunately, there was no fire, just smoke in the building, but the local firefighter said the fire department is taking on unnecessary risk in instances like this.

A simple fix would be to rescind or modify the mandatory vaccination policy at Orangeville, as the four volunteer firefighters who were removed would come back, according to the local firefighter.

“All they want to do is serve their community,” he said.

The local firefighter added that the issue with having less staff at the fire hall isn’t something most people would notice, but it does have an impact.

“Unfortunately, unless you’re a member of the public or another local firefighter that understands the service and is paying attention, most people don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong, or what type of service they’re supposed to be receiving,” he said. “They don’t even know to question, as long as a big red truck shows up outside of their house, they’re happy, even though they don’t maybe know that the truck could have gotten there quicker, or there should have been more trucks.”

Meanwhile, the recently terminated firefighter stressed that in the three incidents, there was no lack of commitment or dedication by the Orangeville firefighters who responded, it’s a staffing issue.

“They’re very good firefighters, they’re good at what they do. It’s just the numbers aren’t there to help,” he said.

In response to the concerns shared around the three calls on Feb. 3 and 4, Orangeville Fire Chief Ron Morden disputed that there were any issues. In speaking with crews and captains of the February 3 and 4 events, he said no one felt there was a lack of resources or a delay in responding to the back-to-back calls.

Morden noted that there are several areas to be considered when guidelines are established with respect to firefighter response and turn-out. 

“When crews receive the call information from dispatch, the officer in charge makes a decision to page out the volunteers or respond on their as a single response. En route to the scene the officer listens to the reports from dispatch to decide if additional resources are required or if a station standby from a surrounding service may be required,” Morden said. “On arrival, the officer constantly re-evaluates the conditions to ensure the proper resources are available. The officer also ensures that other apparatus on scene are free to respond to additional calls for help, if required.”

Morden also noted the mutual aid system has been in place for over 50 years, when departments require additional resources or staffing.

He went on to note that Orangeville utilizes a composite fire service made up of full-time and volunteer firefighters, with one truck always being staffed by four to five full-time firefighters.

“It allows the crews to respond quickly and investigate or even mitigate. If circumstances dictate, additional calls may be required to the emergency or additional crews,” Morden said.

He added that the local fire department is comparable and consistent with other composite/volunteer departments across the Province.

“This service and the mutual aid system provides the resources to respond to fire and medical calls,” he noted.

However, the local firefighter said staffing would be considered low in Orangeville compared to other services, since its suppose to have 28 volunteer firefighters but only has 17 who are trained and available currently. Ten new volunteer firefighters have been hired recently but they are still receiving training and unable to respond to calls.

Going forward, the recently terminated firefighter who spoke with the Citizen said he’d like to see the Town review their current vaccination policy, as similar policies are being lifted across the province.

“I would hope that just by the evidence coming out that the vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission, it doesn’t prevent hospitalization, it doesn’t prevent you getting sick, that the policy should be reassessed,” he remarked.

Readers Comments (1)