Grey fire station relocation recommended in Huron East fire report

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

A long-term project came to an end at Huron East Council’s June 24 meeting, with the presentation of a fire service review for the municipality, but now the work of implementing the nearly 50 recommendations will begin.

 

Lyle Quan of the Emergency Management Group Inc. was at the meeting to present his findings and discuss his recommendations, which included the construction of a new fire hall in Seaforth, a new Grey fire hall, more centrally located, and a number of other capital expenses, as well as several operational recommendations, which can be completed with existing staff.
Many of the recommendations, he said, are simple and can be implemented rather easily, like the creation of a committee with representation from the municipality and all three departments or promotion of the value of residential sprinklers when new residential developments are being planned and constructed.

 

Others, however, are a bit more complicated and much more expensive.

 

One such recommendation is the hiring of an administrative assistant within the next year at a cost of between $60,000 and $75,000.

 

The increase of administrative support would be in line with departmental growth, Quan said in his report, and could include records management, report filing, public inquiries and more. However, he said, the assistant would only spend 10 per cent of their time with the fire department, while they would be free to work elsewhere within the municipality at other times.

 

Speaking of records management, Quan recommended that the Huron East Fire Department move to a computerized records management system to store all records used by the department. He recommended implementing the new system within the next one to three years at a cost of between $5,000 and $20,000.

 

Another big-ticket item is the live burn training trailer that can be used for all three stations. It would cost between $200,000 and $700,000 and would require staffing, if council were to move ahead with the purchase. Later in the meeting, Fire Chief Glen Ackerman said it would be a large expense and that there are ways around the purchase, while still providing the firefighters with the live fire training that they need by law. Furthermore, he also noted that the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office has several trailers, but they can often be hard to rent with so many departments vying for their use.

 

Quan also noted that the fire department should develop a formal officer training program, allowing for those who wish to be promoted in the future to get the training and skills they need within Huron East. That too should be implemented in the next year to three years.

 

At a cost of between $70,000 and $100,000 per station for all three stations, Quan recommended the purchase and installation of proper exhaust extraction systems for each station. These, he said, would reduce the risk of exposing firefighters to cancer-causing particulates from the exhausts of the apparatus.

 

The biggest price tag of the entire presentation, however, was to begin the process and planning for the replacement of the Seaforth fire station at an estimated cost of between $5 million and $10 million. 

 

Quan noted that the building had never really been intended as a fire station and, even so, it has passed its best-before date, lacking many features that are common in modern fire stations being used by volunteer departments.

 

As for the Grey department, for better coverage and a more central location when compared to the department’s coverage area, Quan recommended the creation of a new fire station southeast of Walton, instead of its current location in Ethel, which is in the northern portion of the coverage area and quite close to the Brussels station.

 

Ackerman spoke to the recommendations later in the meeting, saying that he would be preparing a report to be presented to council within the next three months. The report would contain cost estimates, feasibility, reviews of each recommendation and an assessment of how achievable each one is, based on the will of council.