{"id":13036,"date":"2019-12-08T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-08T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=13036"},"modified":"2019-12-08T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T16:30:00","slug":"a-q-a-with-volunteer-firefighter-station-chiefs-on-their-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=13036","title":{"rendered":"A Q & A with volunteer firefighter Station Chiefs on their need"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WELLINGTON: <\/strong>Recently, The Laker<\/em> sat down with the local Station Chiefs of volunteer fire departments in Waverley; Fall River; Wellington\/Grand Lake; and Goffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n sitdown chat inside the Fall River Tim Hortons was done to help bring \nawareness of the need for more volunteer firefighters at area stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laker: <\/strong>Why do you need more Volunteer firefighters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station Chiefs:<\/strong>\n \u201cWhen it comes to an emergency call, the most basic medical call that \nwe respond to is sufficient with four members attending. Once you expand\n on the size or type of call (car accidents, fires), then more hands are\n needed. A small structure fire, depending on location of water supply \nwould require at least 20 members and nine fire trucks to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur\n communities are fortunate enough to have Career coverage at Station \n45(Fall River) right now during the weekdays and starting in Jan. 2020, \nthere will be 24-hour coverage with a crew of four career members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith\n everyone\u2019s everyday busy lifestyles, careers and families, it makes it \nharder to recruit new volunteers. Besides the initial training which can\n seem like a lot, you would be looking at approximately five hours per \nweek between training and calls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laker:<\/strong> What are some benefits of being a Volunteer Firefighter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station Chiefs:<\/strong>\n \u201cWhere do we start! The two main benefits is the experience and giving \nback to your community. There are many more like free training, free use\n of gym, free license plates, great camaraderie between yourself and \nyour soon to be fire department family. There is also an honorarium \npoints system which you accumulate over the year for calls and training \nattended. This then get calculated at the end of the year and you \nreceive some money for the time you put in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laker:<\/strong> What could happen to responses if not enough members show up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station Chiefs:<\/strong>\n \u201cDepending on the type of call and without adequate resources \nresponding within the initial 5-10 minute time frame, fires especially \ncould great aggressively worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen not enough resources respond\n initially, then more units from further away will get added to the call\n which will take even more time to get to the scene. This gets worse the\n more rural you get as you have smaller population\u2019s therefore smaller \namounts of community members stepping up to become volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laker:<\/strong> How much training is involved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station Chiefs:<\/strong>\n \u201cWe train every Tuesday night either in station or in the communities \nthat we serve. When first joining, there are 7 weekends for the physical\n hands on training that is spaced out to every second weekend during the\n Spring or Fall VRT (volunteer recruit training).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlong with that\n is some theory training online. Once accepted into the VRT either in \nthe fall or spring, you also can attend regular scheduled training at \nyour station which gives you an arm up when starting VRT.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laker:<\/strong> What do you get out of giving back to your community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station Chiefs:<\/strong>\n \u201cSense of pride and fulfillment are two big ones. You also gain new \nfriendships, skills and an experience like no other. Showing up to try \nand help someone when they are possibly having the worst day of their \nlives and being able to help make it better whether it\u2019s only a little \nbit is what its truly about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can stop by any of the Stations \non a Tuesday evening at 7pm to get an application or reach out to one of\n the Station Chiefs to have any questions answered at the numbers below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station 41 (Waverley) \u2013 Bryan Lynch \u2013 902-488-9969<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station 42\/43 (Wellington\/Grand Lake) \u2013 Ryan Crain \u2013 902-499-5005<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station 45 (Fall River) \u2013 Nick Yeomans \u2013 902-818-0060<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Station 47 (Goffs) \u2013 Donny Thompson \u2013 902-499-6791.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WELLINGTON: Recently, The Laker sat down with the local Station Chiefs of volunteer fire departments in Waverley; Fall River; Wellington\/Grand Lake; and Goffs. The sitdown chat inside the Fall River Tim Hortons was done to help bring awareness of the need for more volunteer firefighters at area stations. Here it is: The Laker: Why do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[2,665,381,156,942,495,16,143],"class_list":["post-13036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-featured","tag-fall-river","tag-goffs","tag-grand-lake","tag-hrm-fire","tag-recruitment","tag-volunteer-firefighters","tag-waverley","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}