Due to a drop in the number of firefighters at halls across the county, fire officials are hoping to recruit new members by asking a simple question: what if you called and nobody came?
The reasons for volunteers leaving are varied: some go back to school or leave town, while others have had problems with their employers letting them go to calls during work hours, said Lac La Biche firefighter Brad Semeniuk.Whatever the reason, Lac La Biche County has been trying to bolster numbers through a countywide recruitment drive, he said.
“These days, when we get a call we’re lucky to get six people – and we hope to get at least 10,” Semeniuk said. “We need five to run the pumper [truck], four on rescue, two to run the tankers … it’s hard to find people during the day because a lot of people have jobs. And Owl River is in even worse shape – they’ve only got three members.”
For that reason, the departments want to attract as many new members as they can. That way, even if a call takes place during the day, there’ll be enough members with different work schedules to have plenty of responders.
“A lot of it is just getting the word out,” Semeniuk said. “Some people say: I’d love to help, but I work on the rigs. But if we could get six new people and they all work up on the rigs, chances are their schedules will balance out.”
And being a firefighter doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice all of your time, he said. Firefighters in the Lac La Biche Fire Department are only expected to make it to half of the training sessions – there’s no obligation to make it out every week. Plus, if you’re not comfortable with the idea of running into a burning building, there are support positions like running the tankers or directing people and traffic.
The recruitment drive has been seeing some positive results: in the last two months the Hylo Fire Department has more than doubled their numbers from five to 12 members. Hylo’s Deputy Fire Chief Larry Baker hopes those new members will mean faster response times – and with those faster response times, maybe some saved lives.
“Say if there’s a call at one in the morning of a motor vehicle accident on Highway 663 – that’s only three or four kilometres from the [Hylo] hall,” Baker said. “So Hylo could be on the scene in five, 10 minutes. Lac La Biche wouldn’t be out there for 15 minutes. When you’re talking about the golden hour, those few minutes make a big difference.”
As part of increasing awareness of local fire departments, Semeniuk and Baker were both influential in the organization of this year’s Fire Prevention Week, Oct. 9-15. For the first time this year, all of the fire halls held open houses and tours as a way to attract new members and to encourage community involvement.
“The [open houses] were all awesome,” Baker said. “In Plamondon they were handing out smoke and carbon monoxide detectors – that kind of stuff doesn’t happen enough.”
Ultimately, the community involvement is focused on one thing: getting those new members. Because, like Semeniuk said, what if you called and no one came?
