Crash shows value of volunteer firefighters

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This article was published 20/06/2023 (1181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The response to last week’s fatal accident in Carberry shows the value of Manitoba’s volunteer fire departments, according to the president of the Manitoba Association of Fire Chiefs.

Cameron Abrey, also the chief of the Dauphin Fire Department, said in a phone interview with the Sun that only Brandon and Winnipeg have full-time professional fire departments in Manitoba, while the remaining 90 per cent of firefighters are volunteers.

The rest of the province’s municipalities have departments made up entirely of non-career firefighters or a mix of career and non-career firefighters.

He said the word “volunteer” can sometimes be misleading, as all firefighters receive the same level of training and are paid for their services, but only some fight fires as their full-time job.

Rural departments like those in Carberry can mobilize to a site first, assess needs and then decide if they need to request mutual aid from other communities.

In last week’s case, mutual aid was requested from Neepawa as the larger response was being worked on. Abrey said he knew of at least one trained volunteer firefighter from another jurisdiction driving by the scene who pulled over to offer their services.

“They all take the same level of training through the Manitoba Emergency Services College in Brandon,” Abrey said. “And so now, people are trained in firefighting, vehicle extrication, hazardous materials response.”

However, Abrey said he didn’t think anyone is prepared when first arriving at a scene like last Thursday’s.

One of the biggest problems in his view is maintaining departments in smaller communities.

Between the City of Dauphin and the RM of Dauphin, there are between 11,000 and 12,000 residents and those communities are unable to support a full, professional department.

“Unfortunately, our smaller communities are dwindling in population,” Abrey said. “People are leaving to seek careers elsewhere.”

One potential recruitment tool to bring in new members is a federal $3,000 tax credit eligible to volunteer firefighters who perform 200 hours of service in a given year. To make it more enticing, Abrey said his association has been lobbying Ottawa to boost the credit to $10,000.

Abrey said the Office of the Fire Commissioner will dispatch something called a critical incident stress management team if departments request to help guide first responders through the stress of dealing with traumatic calls. Available since the early ’90s, he said he hoped the province would continue to fund that program.

Other resources include getting diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder through the Workers’ Compensation Board and programming at the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Courses at the emergency services college are aimed at promoting mental wellness.

“We want to try to deliver these tools to them to help them discover coping mechanisms to deal with this,” he said. “Unfortunately, we know that we lose some responders out of emergency services whether it’s fire, police, EMS or even correctional officers that get burnt out because of the traumatic services that they respond to.”

He said that no matter who you are, eyewitness or first responder to the tragedy in Carberry, please talk to someone if you saw something that bothered you whether it’s a doctor, faith leader or someone else.

“I have seen too many people hold things in after witnessing traumatic events.”

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark