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Orangeville to lose 20 per cent of volunteer firefighters

February 3, 2022   ·   5 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

The Town’s firefighting force is about to get noticeably smaller.

The fire department will lose about 20 per cent of its volunteer members on Feb. 11 for failing to comply with the Town’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. This represents four of 21 volunteers. The full complement is supposed to be 28 members, but 16 off duty full-time firefighters are accessible to be called in at a 50 per cent increased cost. However, about half live outside of Town.

A local firefighter, who has worked in the role over 10 years, recently expressed concerns to the Citizen regarding the sudden loss in volunteers who would still like to serve.

“I’m worried about how eliminating four staff members out of 21 on the volunteer side is going to affect the response for both the citizens and the safety of all the firefighters because that’s almost a quarter of the department,” said the local firefighter, who asked for his name be kept anonymous to avoid potential repercussion for commenting on the situation. 

When a call comes in that can be handled by the full-time firefighters on duty, the volunteers are on standby if another emergency call occurs at the same time. It is not uncommon for the volunteers to be dispatched when this happens, and they run their own emergency response, said the anonymous firefighter.

New volunteers have required a minimum of one year training to ride in the fire truck and a little over two years to be able operate the truck along with all their other duties historically, so he fears the drop in experience could impact the quality of Orangeville’s emergency response. Three of the four firefighters being removed have 5.5 years of experience, while one has 18.

“Gaining experience really drives a lot of safety because the more things you’ve been exposed to, the more you learn. So what kind of irks me is – why reduce the level of service to the town at a time when technically it should be a priority with higher call volumes,” he noted, when speaking of the winter months resulting in more calls due to the cold weather.

All fire departments follow standards set out by the National Fire Protection Association and if the department fails to meet those standards, it could open up the Town to liability issues. This would include a delayed response, not having enough responders on the scene, or not having enough firefighters available to get to the station.

“I see it as you’re rolling the dice,” said the anonymous local firefighter. “If we do a missed response, have a lack of response or inappropriate response due to staffing, and one of your family members is not appropriately cared for, the Town could be held responsible. Which, when thinking about the taxpayers, we could lose a considerable amount of money.”

However, Mayor Sandy Brown who voted in support of the mandatory vaccine policy for all Town staff and volunteers said he absolutely refutes that there will be any reduction in service levels, noting the department will always be fully staffed.

“It may cost a little bit more because there may be some people on overtime that wouldn’t otherwise been because of an absence. But yes, there’s no concern for the fact that Orangeville fire is or is not going to be responding,” he told the citizen. “I can’t speak to any other fire halls that are surrounding us, but out of Orangeville we will always have a full complement 24/7.”

The anonymous firefighter told the Citizen the Town began putting fulltime firefighters on call 24/7 to fill the gaps for volunteers because in the past there was issues with not having enough members to call upon during an emergency. He fears this could happen again.

In an email statement from the Town, it was noted that during the September 2021 recruitment sessions, two out of the 10 firefighters being brought on are pre-fire service trained and certified, so their probationary training is more of a refresher.

“One hundred percent of the current complement of operational firefighters (full-time and volunteer firefighters) are fully certified to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and meet all provincial standards. That means that Orangeville Fire Service has all operational demands covered,” read the Town’s statement.

Unvaccinated firefighters to assist Orangeville with mutual aid

Another concern with the policy is the inconsistency when drawing on neighbouring municipalities such as Caledon, Grand Valley, Rosemont, and Shelburne for mutual aid. This happens when responding to a structural fire or larger call, requiring all hands-on-deck, within the municipality, so neighbouring municipalities are dispatched to respond.

Grand Valley has no vaccine policy, instead firefighters’ self-screen before work, while Rosemont, Caledon, and Shelburne have a rapid antigen test option for unvaccinated firefighters. Shelburne is the only detachment of the four with a 100 per cent vaccination rate for its firefighters.

This means four fully trained and qualified volunteer firefighters will be let go from the local force only to potentially be replaced by unvaccinated firefighters, travelling considerable distances from other municipalities, when mutual aid is called. There is an average of 11 of these calls per year.

“I just kind of hate seeing that, and it just doesn’t make sense to me when we have invested heavily in these guys. And the volunteers the Town is letting go are esteemed members, they’re in good standing, and they do a lot for the community,” said the local firefighter.

“We call them volunteers, but they stand by at night and all through the day with pagers waiting to come in, and now we’re turning them away, and quality volunteers are hard to get. It seems like every time there’s a recruitment [open house], there’s less and less people signing up.”

There are 10 volunteers being onboarded currently through recruitment, which will bring Orangeville up to 27 volunteers from 17, however a few typically drop out once they fully get into weekend/nightly training as the time commitment is significant, according to the anonymous local firefighter.

When asked why volunteer firefighters without the jab are being terminated from the local fire department, when other municipalities will be bringing in unvaccinated members to serve Orangeville for mutual aid, Mayor Sandy Brown said the vaccination policy had to be aligned for all Council members, committee members, and Town staff. He added that the vaccine keeps you safe.

“We follow the majority, and we followed what the province has done, what the federal government has done,” Mayor Brown remarked.

With respect to neighbouring municipalities allowing rapid antigen testing instead of vaccination, Mayor Brown noted that smaller municipalities perhaps couldn’t bear the cost associated with firing unvaccinated firefighters.

“Some municipalities aren’t as financially stable as we are. They may have thought about those issues. They don’t have as many staff as we do, so letting anybody go is a concern,” he noted.

The anonymous local firefighter said he understands why the Town enacted a policy in the fall, as the COVID-19 vaccines at the time appeared to greatly reduce transmission, but now with Omicron, breakthrough cases are just as common, per capita, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

“My thing is you made a decision back in November, so much has changed between now and then,” he said.

On Jan. 31, of the 3,043 newly reported COVID-19 cases, 529 were not vaccinated, while 2,125 were fully vaccinated, 119 partially vaccinated, and 270 had an unknown status, according to Public Health Ontario.

Mayor Brown told the Citizen that forcing firefighters to get vaccinated isn’t about preventing transmission, but more about serving the greater good, and those who refuse to do that shouldn’t be allowed to serve.

However, the Town’s COVID-19 Vaccination Policy, which was approved Oct. 15, states the policy is to protect workers from COVID-19 transmission.

“The Town of Orangeville considers vaccinations to be fundamental to the protection of individuals and the community, and to be consistent with the best available public health advice for prevention of the spread of COVID-19 and variants,” the policy states.

Costs associated with policy

Replacing the four firefighters also comes at a cost to taxpayers for the training of new recruits.

It’s over $2,000 per firefighter to get certified and take needed courses, while PPE, a pager, and uniform cost close to $6,000, bringing the total cost to about $8,000. This does not include the costs of firefighter wages for training. A source who’s familiar with the issue said it requires 200-300 hours of training to get basic certification.

Mayor Brown says it’s a price the Town’s willing to pay to ensure no staff or volunteers are unvaccinated.

While the anonymous firefighter says these costs are easily avoidable if the Town aligns its vaccine policy with neighbouring municipalities, Mayor Brown says it’s their fault for not complying.

“Those people are the ones that are causing the expense if we have to retrain people, they could have easily got the vaccination, and I think they should have,” said Mayor Brown, adding that the vaccines are safe for the vast majority of people, while a small portion have allergic or adverse reactions.

With the Town’s current policy, any new hires for the volunteer firefighters or any Town staff must be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Meanwhile, when looking at the four members being removed from the volunteer force, it was noted that they’re struggling most with not being able to step up for their community when needed.

“Just from talking to them, the big thing is they really are struggling with the loss of ability to serve,” said the anonymous firefighter.

Town’s position

In a statement from the Town it was noted that a 20 per cent reduction in volunteer firefighters has happened before, as they leave for a variety of reasons, noting turnover is standard in the field.

“To make up for the four volunteer firefighters currently on leave, volunteer squads have been modified to ensure an even number of firefighters responding during on-call time periods. Since January 1, 2022, there has not been a marked difference in response times and there has been a sufficient number of firefighters responding and attending to all emergency calls,” read the statement.

It went on to state, “I am proud to report that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic all of Orangeville Fire staff have stepped up; we have not seen a decrease in firefighter response or an increase in response times. Training hours have remained consistent through online and in-house training sessions. This would not have been possible without the dedication of our staff in volunteer and full-time suppression, the training division, and prevention and public education.”

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