Fewer firefighters answering calls in Holyrood

By Craig Westcott/November 4, 2022

While there may be concerns about the number of volunteer firefighters who have been answering calls in Holyrood’s coverage area lately, the department is in good shape, councillor Bruce King told his colleagues at last month’s public council meeting.

The chairman of the Town’s public safety committee admitted that in some cases the numbers answering emergency calls have been very low. 

“And in some cases, it may have delayed the response because you had to wait for people to show up,” he said. “We had an excellent discussion with the fire chief. And they are volunteers, first of all. They’re paid, but they’re only paid if they show up. But if you look at all the stuff that has happened over the past year, especially with regards to the pandemic, people’s time with your kids, especially people here with small kids, your time with your children is probably very important, especially if have very active lives.  You’re gone to work, you’re home, you’ve got kids, you’ve got school, you’ve got homework, you’ve got gym, you’ve got whatever. It takes a lot of time. There’s only 24 hours in a day and you can only squeeze so much into 24 hours. So, there’s not a problem with regards to the fire department. It’s just a fact that people’s lives are so hectic. When these people can respond, they will respond… These people are very dedicated, they’re very highly trained. They come in (to the fire hall) and from the time they set foot through the door, until the time they set foot out the door, they are training, they are doing something related to their profession. They put a hundred per cent into what they have to do, so we’re in great hands.”

Emergency Preparedness

In related news, King said the members of his committee and the fire department are going to try abridging the Town’s emergency plan.

“We have a document there that’s about a couple hundred pages,” he said. “We’re going to look at that over the coming weeks and months and try to condense it down into something that’s usable. There’s a lot of stuff in there that you can look at at a later date. But there’s stuff in there that really needs to be compiled in a much smaller binder sized thing… So, we’re going to work on trying to make that into something that’s easy to look at.”

Operations Centre

King said the committee and fire department is also going to consider establishing an emergency operations centre inside the fire hall.

The members of the public safety committee may visit other operation centres, such as the one at the St. John’s Regional Fire Department, to study their operations, he added.

Fire Budget

“We also discussed the budget for 2023 and there are lots of items there that the fire department wants,” King reported. “It’s a long list and we’ve already said, there’s only so much money in the piggy bank, and the piggy bank is getting skinny.”

King said one of the big things the department is examining is the fire hall itself.

“Last year, and I think this year, it was over $11,000 in heat (costs),” said the councillor. “There are parts of that building that has no insulation. There are big heaters down there that when they go on, they don’t shut off. The problem is, the minute you open the big doors, when the fire truck goes out the door, so does all the heat. The heat chases the fire truck down the road. There needs to be something done to better maintain the building.”

The committee is looking to see if there are any provincial government funding programs to retrofit the building.

Nalcor Training

The Town’s two full time firefighters who are paid by Nalcor to be on standby for any event at the Holyrood Thermal Generating Station are getting lots of work training staff, King said.

“They spend a lot of time at the Nalcor site training the Nalcor staff in everything from first aid to you name it,” he said. “And from all the reports back from Nalcor, the people that we have here do an absolutely fantastic job. The people at Nalcor can’ say enough good things about the firefighters that we have here. When they go out there, they do exactly what they are supposed to do, they’re highly professional and everyone thinks it’s absolutely fantastic and the type of training they’re getting is second to none.”

Reaching Out

King said the committee is also hoping to arrange meetings with the new RCMP commander and with the commander of the local Ground Search and Rescue Team.

“It would be good to interact and get their feel on stuff and if nothing else, put a name to a face,” he said.