Powell River resident calls for increase in firefighter staffing

A Wildwood resident appeared before City of Powell River councillors, expressing support for additional firefighters.

At the January 31 committee of the whole meeting, Debbie Dee, speaking on behalf of her niece Willow Baillie, read a presentation, outlining Baillie’s experiences with a house fire at her residence in Wildwood.

Dee said Baillie purchased the house 28 years ago and bought the property across from the Wildwood fire hall on purpose.

“I did not realize this fire hall was not staffed by career firefighters and relied totally on volunteers,” read Dee, from Baillie’s notes. “At 2 am on December 29, a fire had started somewhere in the back of the house. There was then a loud explosion. My home was burning.

“I did not understand why the doors of the fire hall were staying closed, right across the street.”

Dee read that firefighters arrived from Westview eight minutes after receiving the call.

“I am grateful for the quick response, although the house was fully engulfed when they arrived,” read Dee. “It burned very quickly and I lost everything, including most of my pets. I was really angry until I later learned about the Wildwood hall only being staffed by volunteer firefighters, and, currently, there are only two volunteers [in Wildwood], one of which was on holiday the morning of my home burning to the ground. That’s why the doors didn’t open.”

Dee read that there is opposition to spending more money on firefighters because of the tax burden already felt in this community. At the same time, no one knows how vital the service is until it happens to them, she added.

“When your house is on fire, your tax bill is the last thing you are thinking about,” read Dee. “[Baillie] would like to propose a discussion at the council level that would include several options to ensure we are covered on any street at any time of the day or night.”

Baillie’s presentation advocated for recruitment of more volunteer firefighters and budgetary considerations to keep the community safe.

Fire chief Terry Peters expressed the fire department’s deepest condolences to Baillie for her loss.

Peters said fire department staffing is not a Powell River problem, it’s a national problem and right across North America.

He said the Wildwood hall has been there since 1949 and has been staffed by paid on-call, or volunteer firefighters.

“We’ve always struggled with staffing,” said Peters. “I’ve said every fire truck should have a minimum of four firefighters on it and that particular day, we had three. If we need to get more firefighters we need to hire more firefighters.

“For recruiting, we’re doing the best we can. We need people to be paid on-call but at the end of the day, I need firefighters on the truck. We’re doing all we can with the resources we have.”

Peters said he came out of the Wildwood fire hall, working there in 1987, and there were 25 or 30 people in the hall. Now, there are two people living in Wildwood who are paid on-call firefighters.

Peters said after a Peak story was published on recruitment, interest has been shown by members of the community. It takes 585 hours of instructional training to get firefighters up to a national fire protection standard, which takes time and commitment, which is hard to maintain, he added.

City councillor Trina Isakson asked how many paid on-call firefighters could be accommodated.

Peters said an average house fire requires a minimum of 15 firefighters by national standards to fight it safely. He has 21 paid on-call firefighters on paper, and only 18 can physically respond at this time. He said when the pagers ring, it’s not guaranteed they can all show up. With Baillie’s fire, five auxiliaries showed up. Career firefighters were called in and the minimum was met.

Peters said a comfort level for him is 30 paid-on call firefighters, and that the department used to have 75.