Butchers, farmers, retirees step up to 'great demand' of volunteer firefighting

It's a rigorous recruitment process, but Hamilton's fire department hopes you might just be up for being a volunteer firefighter.

Just to be considered, prospective volunteers go through physical, medical, police, aptitude, license and reference checks. And if they pass all those tests, they do 260 hours of training. Then, they need to do is stay fit, healthy, and flexible.

Oh, and be ready to run out the door and into a fire truck at a moment's notice.

"There's a great demand put on our volunteer firefighters," said David Cunliffe, chief of the Hamilton Fire Department.

"Many of these people have full-time jobs, a home life, and are willing to give up their time to serve their communities."

Volunteers come from all walks of life

Despite all this, Cunliffe hopes a few new people consider it. The department is recruiting volunteer firefighters for a number of stations, and that recruitment runs until Sept. 6. Expected intakes will happen in February and August 2018.

So who are these quintessential small-town heroes? In the past, they were mostly farmers. But as demographics shift, they're emerging from all different backgrounds.

"We have people who work in retail, the service industry, business owners, farmers, shift workers, homemakers, retired people," said Cunliffe.

Paul Barlow is a retiree who works as a volunteer firefighter at the Lynden department in Flamborough. He worked as a tool and dye maker in Brantford for 30 years.

"My other career was ho hum, the same every day," he said. "With this, every day is different."

Barlow says while the commitment is significant, the rewards far outweigh it.

"A big part of why I do this is knowing that when somebody here calls 911 someone's going to be there to help them," he said.

But the job doesn't come without challenges, especially in a community as small as Flamborough.

Almost always, one of the volunteers will know the victim on scene.

"It can be a little traumatic when you respond to a car accident and it's somebody you know," he said.

Volunteers make up a huge portion of Canada's firefighters

People like Barlow have become instrumental to rural Canada's firefighting efforts.

According to the National Fire Protection Agency, there were 169,800 firefighters in Canada between 2013 and 2015 — 85 per cent of those were volunteers. In comparison, only around 69 per cent of firefighters in the U.S. were volunteers. Generally, the smaller the community, the higher the percentage of volunteers.

In Hamilton, there are nine fire stations staffed entirely by volunteers, and three more have a combination of both volunteers and full-time staff.

"These volunteers are very important to their communities," said Cunliffe. "There just aren't enough tax dollars to hire full-time firefighters for all of these areas."

Volunteers are generally paid an hourly wage for the time they spend responding to calls and performing fire hall duties. Cunliffe estimates it is around $20 an hour in Hamilton.

But many of a volunteer firefighter's duties are the same as those performed by a career firefighter. And according to Judi Partridge, city councillor for Ward 15 in Flamborough, fires in rural areas are often particularly tricky to fight.

"There are usually no fire hydrants," she said. "It may require five or six fire trucks and pumpers and up to 20 to 30 crew to run back and forth to the nearest water source."

Standardizing the industry

According to Rob Hyndman, president of the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association, the volunteer firefighting industry is mostly unregulated.

"But from a health and safety aspect, there is no distinction," he said.

About a year and a half ago, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services began exploring professional qualifications for fire fighting as a whole. Hyndman hopes the government will soon bring forward a form of standardization for the service and begin to modernize the industry — for both staff and volunteers.  

At the end of the day, he says, a fire doesn't determine between a volunteer and a career firefighter.

Union doesn't want career firefighters to volunteer

Though it's difficult to estimate their prevelance, some volunteers are also "double hatters" — meaning they work as a full-time firefighter with a city department and volunteer in their community in their spare time. But that's technically against union rules.

In fact, just last year the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) sent warning letters to a dozen of its members who they believed were double-hatting in Caledon, a small town northwest of Toronto. The letters said they could face fines or even expulsion from the union if they didn't resign their volunteer duties.

But, according to Hyndman,  those issues shouldn't affect departments that aren't part of a local IAFF union.

And Hamilton's fire chief says they will welcome applications from whoever is interested in volunteering, including career firefighters.

"That's a union issue," said Cunliffe. "From our perspective, we're very open to whoever wants to come join us."

Applications are open.

Stations recruiting volunteers:

• Station 14, 595 Chapel Hill Rd., Elfrida.
• Station 15, 415 Arvin Ave., Stoney Creek.
• Station 16, 939 Barton St. E., Stoney Creek.
• Station 17, 363 Isaac Brock Dr., Stoney Creek.
• Station 18, 2636 Highway #56, Binbrook.
• Station 19, 3302 Homestead Dr., Mount Hope.
• Station 21, 365 Wilson St. W., Ancaster.
• Station 24, 252 Parkside Dr., Waterdown.
• Station 25, 361 Old Brock Rd., Greensville.
• Station 26, 119 Lynden Rd., Lynden.
• Station 27, 795 Old Highway #8, Rockton.
• Station 28, 1801 Brock Rd., Freelton.