Fire chief 'shocked' after Kings County axes local department without notice

Nova Scotia's Municipality of the County of Kings voted to close the Greenwich Volunteer Fire Department and hand its assets to the volunteer department in the nearby town of Wolfville at a special council meeting this week.

Jason Ripley, the chief of the Greenwich Volunteer Fire Department, said he learned about the decision when the deputy CAO called him at 8:30 p.m. to say they were about to send out a news release announcing the closure. 

"I was taken aback. I was very shocked," Ripley told CBC News Wednesday.

The municipal council had been discussing the area's firefighting needs over the last year or so, but did not announce it would vote on closing the department Tuesday and the topic was not listed on the council agenda. 

The minutes from the meeting show it was a special meeting held by video and included the Kings County municipal council, the Town of Wolfville council and the Greenwich Fire Protection Commission.

The debate was held in a closed session. The Kings County council voted 9-0 vote in favour of closing the department and executing an agreement with the Town of Wolfville for it to provide fire services in the Greenwich district. 

'We feel quite betrayed'

Ripley said he asked Coun. Jim Winsor and the CAO to delay sending out the news release so that he could tell the 39 volunteer firefighters himself, but they declined to wait.

The chief emailed the news to his members at 9:30 p.m. He later posted a video to social media. The station is set to close in just five weeks, on April 1.

"It's very disheartening. We feel quite betrayed by how the process has played out," he said. "Thirty-seven days is a pretty quick timeline to make a decision of this consequence and for them to have made the decision in a single night is puzzling."

Winsor, the councillor for Greenwich and New Minas, said closing Greenwich will reduce redundancies as there are other fire halls in the area, and will save $130,137 a year.

"Both the fire district of Wolfville and Greenwich have imminent needs for new fire halls. The estimated cost to replace Wolfville's is $3.2 million and the estimated cost to replace the Greenwich fire hall is $2.5 million, for a total combined replacement cost of $5.7 million," he said.

Closing Greenwich will mean they only have to build one new fire hall. He said council met behind closed doors because it included conversations about contracts. 

Peter Muttart, the mayor of the municipality, said the process started when Greenwich raised concerns about its levels of funding. The municipality hired Ontario-based Emergency Management & Training to assess the situation seven months ago. 

Council got the report shortly before the Tuesday meeting and voted to close the department the same day. Greenwich will rely on the Wolfville Volunteer Fire Department and the other 11 fire departments in the area for protection. 

"Each department of Wolfville and Greenwich are now at the stage where they need significant reparations and improvements in terms of physical assets. We determined that Wolfville being a town-owned department, it would be a logical successor to it all and that department could provide the service," he said.

Muttart said council plans to close the department April 1 and give all the assets to Wolfville, which will use them to pay for a new fire station in Wolfville.  

"It would be Wolfville's fire department, but it would be a brand-new facility. It would be the most modern facility at time of construction," he said. 

The Greenwich Fire Commission owns the fire department's assets, which Ripley said include four trucks and other tools worth several million dollars. The volunteers raised between 33 and 50 per cent of that money to buy them.

Commission members attended the council meeting. The elected commission represents the interests of Greenwich, but Ripley said two of the three members of the commission actually work for the Wolfville Volunteer Fire Department.

"We feel there is definitely a conflict of interest in those two people. Two out of the three are in that fire department and stand to gain from that decision," he said.

Winsor said only one of the members works for Wolfville. 

'They're all good people'

The mayor said he didn't know if any of the Greenwich commission members worked for Wolfville, but he didn't think it was a problem. "That would be tantamount to assuming they would be conflicted. I wouldn't be prepared to make that kind of assumption. They're all good people," Muttart said. 

Winsor also didn't see any conflict of interest. 

Ripley also raised questions about why he wasn't given a copy of the report until the day of the meeting, and why he wasn't invited to the meeting. He said the council should have also consulted the public before making such a big decision. 

The Wolfville fire department is about five kilometres away from the Greenwich department, and Ripley said those extra minutes are critical. 

"When we're talking about a fire, this is obviously an emergency situation where help is needed as quickly as possible," he said. "It could potentially place lives and property in jeopardy."

It could also increase insurance for homeowners who now find themselves more than 13 kilometres from a fire station. 

Currently, a mutual-aid request automatically calls other fire departments to structure fires in the 88-square-kilometre Greenwich area, but Greenwich handles all the non-fire calls. The coverage area includes Greenwich and south to the Hants County border. 

Ripley said his all-volunteer department responds to about 100 calls a year in the district of 2,500 residents. In the last week, that included a vehicle collision, a fire alarm at the local nursing home, and 12 calls about flooding in a five-hour period during last Friday's storm. 

They are also first responders, and are often the first on the scene when someone has a heart attack or is choking.

No places reserved for 39 volunteers

The Municipality of the County of Kings said the 39 volunteer firefighters are not guaranteed positions at other stations, but Muttart said he hopes they will find new positions at other departments. 

Todd Crowell, chief of the Wolfville fire department, said he learned of the change after the council meeting. 

"The fire services study explains that the Wolfville Volunteer Fire Department is capable of expanding our service area to include the Greenwich fire district, while ensuring communities in all corners of the expanded coverage area continue to receive uninterrupted services that meet or exceed the national industry standards," he said. 

Ripley has been a volunteer firefighter for 20 years and works in finance at a local car dealership. 

"We've been really fortunate to have a young base of firefighters that have joined us, especially over the last year," he said. 

"People who hold rank now, who've been firefighters for years and worked their way up through the ranks, obviously are going to lose their positions. Those people are probably going to be less motivated to join another service."

He wants the municipality to pause the closure and talk to the public first. He said his department is open to an amalgamation or other partnership if it improves fire safety. 

"I'm also the Kings County training co-ordinator for the basic firefighter program across Kings County, which is also something I guess I'll be giving up as of April 1," he said, noting he won't have a fire department to work out of.  

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