Council reduces fire staff

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A blaze between the city and the fire department erupted during Monday night's regular city council meeting as a decision was made to reduce already minimal summer staff from 16 firefighters to 15.

Although Budget Chief Peter Chirico says that the decision was being made for financial reasons and service to the public will not be impacted, Rob Roy, President of The North Bay Firefighter's Association says any reduction in service will impact the community.

"We consider under staffing to be a reduction in service," says Roy.

"In any reduction in service, we have concern for possible increased risk to the health and safety of our firefighters and to the public.

Roy says that when there is a fire, there are mandatory jobs that each individual must do to ensure that the job is done effectively. One less staff member on duty means that they still must perform the same tasks without sacrificing service levels. That, says Roy, is going to be both a challenge and a concern for him and his crew.

"We just don't want to see anything bad happen," says Roy.

"We're not saying that it's going to. We're just saying that potential for the risk increase to my members and to the public is there as a result of the reduction and we're very concerned about it."

Roy says that's he's not sure what the non-heating season has to do with the reduction in staff, although he says that council is trying to save money during the summer months. The city claims that the costs can be high due to summer vacations and overtime for staff.

However, Roy says that the overtime is a result of the general low staffing level in the fire department and says city council sets the service level.

"They decide how many people are on a platoon," he says. "They decide how many people are on duty at all times. If they reduce the staffing, they may be saving money but it impacts what we can do at a fire."

Roy says that under staffing could be a concern because North Bay is not a big municipality with multiple departments around it to assist in a fire.

"We're central with only volunteer departments around us, so when we have a big fire, we have to rely on what we have," he says.

Operating with one less person could potentially mean bringing one less truck and could result in making different choices, says Roy.

"There's many ramifications that haven't been examined yet and we haven't got all the details," says Roy.

He says that council hasn't spoken to the Association regarding this matter.

"We've talked to the CAO but I don't think all the facts are out about how this could impact the people in the community.

He says that the Firefighters have only recently found out about the situation they are hoping that they'd be able to stop council from making this decision.

"Fire doesn't distinguish between winter and summer when it happens. It just happens."