Submitted by Acting Fire Chief Stephen McGean
1. Describe your department; How many members do you have in your department? Do you represent career, volunteer, or a combination of both?
Iqaluit Emergency Services, based in the capital city of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, has 20 career Firefighter/EMR staff, 25 volunteers, 5 dispatchers, Assistant, Deputy and Fire Chief. We do Structural and run 2 Ambulances. We are on track for over 4000 calls this year with a City population of 8000. We have no neighboring communities, so no mutual aid.
2. How many are assigned to your training division?
Training is run by our Assistant Chief with 8 of our career staff who cover all our volunteer training, career continuing education for fire and medical.
3. Tell us about a project or training accomplishment that your department considers to be the most significant.
Well we had 18 members complete the 1403 course from ISFSI with Jake and Jason (amazing instructors) and now we are starting the first ever 1001 Lv 1 course in house for our volunteer members.
4. What legacy would your department like to leave behind regarding the training of your members?
We are working hard at training the next generation of firefighters to take over. With the 1001 courses being in house volunteers that want the career job do not have to spend the high costs of flights (roughly 1500$ return just to Ottawa) from here to get down south for this training.
5. What is the biggest change your department has noticed in the fire service?
Seeing our call volume climb, not just medical but fire response as well. We are a smaller City but the calls are climbing 20% annually.
6. What advice would your department share with others regarding the training of firefighters?
Back to the basics! Remember, we all started as the new member at one point in our career. Train a new firefighter to be an old firefighter.