Fire dept

General Forums Prince Rupert Forum
21

It is the same reason we have volunteer search and rescue, and volunteer reserve military, and volunteer auxiliary coast guard. There is a certain ratio of paid to volunteer that makes sense and cities of PR population seem to be around 4-5 paid to 40-50 volunteer. Why does it work just fine in most other jurisdictions (most of which are much larger and drier) and not here? Insurance is not cheaper, the insurance companies just want you to be near a hydrant and have fire service.

And I am not suggesting laying anyone off. It would have to be through attrition that as people move on or retire, replace them with volunteers.

I don’t know what that last statement by bubbasteve meant about never losing a foundation to a fire. Do you mean that a building burnt down but they saved the foundation?

It is no wonder this city is in the state it is.

22

[quote=“MiG”]I’m out to lunch? Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna all have all-volunteer fire departments? Huh?

Smithers is a lot smaller than Rupert. How about comparing a city of the same size? Fire insurance is cheaper with all-volunteer fire department? I’m out to lunch?

To get a DPG of 1, you need to have 3 full-time professional firefighters on duty 24/7. Anything less will get you a DPG of 2 or greater, and higher insurance rates. If Smithers doesn’t have that, then insurance there will be more expensive.[/quote]

Also, I checked the cities web page and our fire department response to 1100 calls a year, 3 calls a day, I would think that’s too heavy of a load for a volunteer department to handle.

23

I don’t know what the answer to this problem is, but having volunteer firemen to augment the full time firemen would take some of the stress off the full time firemen. I believe that about 75% of the firemen in this country are volunteer. I would like to know how many of the 1,100 calls the fire department made last year were fire related and how many were just to aid the ambulance service?

24

Mig had the answer at least short term. Sell citywest while its still worth something. With the amount of tax money I suspect gets dumped into citywests bottomless pit it would likely alleviate the stress long term as well.

Also you could get your new emergency services building.

25

That 1100 calls per year is odd too. Compare most cities this size and the number is between 150-300. So the fender bender in front of 7-11 shouldn’t really be considered.

26

You used the term augment which is not a term I’ve heard used to describe this argument before. As crazy horse said in a previous post, volunteers are used in the military and coast guard to support, or augment, a regular complement. The key would be that any volunteers would be used as support and not to replace paid members. Since I came here as a youngster in the 60’s there have been quite a few big fires where support may have been useful. You won’t ever convince me that volunteers should replace any of the full time jobs though.

27

I don’t think any of the 1,100 calls were “just to aid the ambulance service” I think all of the calls were in service to the citizens of Prince Rupert.

Has anybody talked to the Fire Chief in Port Edward, I would be curious if they ever have periods where they can’t provide service because of manpower issues. And I wonder what they do in those instances.

28

That seems like a statement that someone would say, without facts to back it up. Do you have any?

29

Sure, look some up. Salmon Arm, Terrace, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Comox, Parksville, Summerland, etc. all have populations equal to or larger than PR, all cover a bigger geographical area, and all have 4 or 5 full time firefighters supplemented with volunteers or on call paid auxiliary.

Again, I am not advocating laying anyone off. I am suggesting that as firefighters retire or relocate, they be replaced with volunteer or paid on call auxiliary firefighters. It is obviously done successfully elsewhere, and given the financial state of this city it might be prudent.

30

[quote=“crazy Horse”]Sure, look some up. Salmon Arm, Terrace, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Comox, Parksville, Summerland, etc. all have populations equal to or larger than PR, all cover a bigger geographical area, and all have 4 or 5 full time firefighters supplemented with volunteers or on call paid auxiliary.

Again, I am not advocating laying anyone off. I am suggesting that as firefighters retire or relocate, they be replaced with volunteer or paid on call auxiliary firefighters. It is obviously done successfully elsewhere, and given the financial state of this city it might be prudent.[/quote]

So to be clear… you meant that these similar cities “get by” with a full time force, suplimented by an auxilliary force? I ask because what I read seemed to be you saying that most cities the size of Prince Rupert get by with a volunteer force only.

31

Yes, 3-5 paid, the rest auxiliary, although some are all volunteer.

And they don’t just “get by”, they do very well when called upon.

32

The standard is 3 full-time professionals on duty, 24/7. Any less than that and insurance will be more expensive.

So any perceived savings on your taxes will be eaten up by more expensive house insurance.

33

Looking back at the previous posts, one person said that there is usually only 3 firemen on shift and the excerpt that Mig posted said that there are only 13 firefighters at present. I don’t know how the labour is divided but it sounds like they are running at a bare minimum of full time staff with only 4 volunteers. Crazy horse said 3-5 paid with the rest volunteer. Do you mean 3-5 on shift? Im wondering what is the rationale behind staffing 3-5 in total or on shift at a time. I understand that if what Mig says is correct then insurance is affected but is there any other standard?

34

No, 3 or 4 full time firefighters total, not per shift. And I can tell you first hand that I have lived in a community with a much drier climate and a 100% volunteer FD and my fire insurance was cheap. Like I said before, as long as we had a fire hydrant close by our premium was very low.

35

If you lived in a community with 100% volunteer fire department (ie: no career, professional firefighters at all) then you were paying higher insurance rates than you would have been paying if you had a fire department with 3 career, professional firefighters on duty 24/7.

The insurance guy I know pointed me to this: fireunderwriters.ca/dpg_e.asp

You would have had a DPG of 3 or 4.

[quote]Fire Force

For each fire hall with a Dwelling Protection Grade 1, the credited available responding fire force will include at a minimum:

3 career fire fighters on duty 24 hrs/day, 365 days/year
1 Fire Chief (required to respond but not required to be on-duty)[/quote]

And he said that any less than 3 full-time on duty 24/7 will mean higher insurance, since you’re not in a “grade 1” area. And the difference between a 1 and a 3 or 4 can be hundreds of dollars (depending on how much your policy is for).

But hey, maybe the insurance guy is wrong. Maybe the Fire Underwriter Survey guys are wrong. And maybe I’m out to lunch, as Saltybear insists.

36

You’re not out to lunch, I just don’t know if the difference in premium is all that much. I have lived in communities that would have been rated 1-3A according to that survey and the difference I paid in premiums between them was $100/yr.

37

Something doesn’t add up.

You said you lived in a community with “100% volunteer FD and my fire insurance was cheap.”

Then you said that the difference was $100/year.

According to the DPG linked above, your community would have had a DPG of 4. i.e.: everything a “3A or 3B” would have had, but “100% volunteer FD” means no professionals at all, right? So that would put you at a 4 (meets all the DPG 3B criteria, except one).

The difference between a DPG of 1 and 4 is not $100/year, UNLESS, you were insuring something for $10,000 or so.

According to the Fire Underwriter’s Survey, here’s an average of 4 insurance quotes for British Columbia, on a sample property (built 1980, 1000sq ft, 3bdrm, 2 baths, $125,000).

This is the average of 4 different insurance companies:

Scenario 1: DPG 1 (3 full-time firefighters 24/7): $450/year
Scenario 2: DPG 2 (1 full-time firefighter 24/7, and a chief, rest auxiliary): $736/year
Scenario 3: DPG 3 (1 full-time professional chief-not on duty, rest auxiliary): $1,396/year

(numbers taken from a FUS presentation to BC municipalities, I’ll send it to you if you’d like, or you can google it.)

So even in the best case scenario of DPG 3, you’re talking more than triple the insurance rates. But like you said, you lived in a community with “100% volunteer FD” – so that’s DPG 4 (since there’s no professional chief). So your rates would have been even higher than just triple.

So here’s what I’m thinking: you weren’t living in a community with “100% volunteer FD”. You were in a community that had professional firefighers, and you didn’t know it. (ie: they had one professional on at all times, or had a professional chief). Or you were covered by another professional department, and you didn’t know it. Or some other mistake like that. No reason to think that you’re just making up stuff.

The bottom line is that anything less than 3 full-time firefighters on duty 24/7, and your insurance rates will be significantly higher. There’s no arguing that.

38

Hey, this is NOT rocket science…A volunteer dept usually has one or two full time firemen,and the rest are all volunteers,that is why they have so many ,three or four may be needed for a call but there may be 25 volunteers.A full time dept as in Nelson,pop 10-12 thousand,has a chief,deputy and 6 firemen also 20+ auxiliary members to back up the full timers.As for insurance rates,I have talked to ins co’s in Smithers and a couple of other towns that have volunteer depts and we were higher!If we are going to bring city spending under control we have to start looking at what other cities are doing.We did have a full complement of aux members a few years back,as many as 30 at one time,and of course our pop was near 20,000.As for the calls they attend,every fender bender is counted as an incident.They do a report on how many we fire calls and how many cats they plucked from a tree!BS.

39

Hey MIG,

I crawled that link you added about the insurance ratings, and there is some interesting stuff there. It says that 90% of the insurance companies reference this survey when they set the rates for different communities. It doesn’t say how they set the rates because this would reveal how they make their money and insurance companies are not in that business to lose profits.

Does anyone know what Prince Rupert is graded at?

Also, it looks like the survey gives a 30% consideration for water supplies, but gives 40% consideration to apparatus, manpower, training, etc. There is a lot of interesting info on that link.

40

I found a similar discussion in a thread that’s a couple of years old. Saltybear had the some of the same complaints which were actually replied to by a fireman. Good info.

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