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Chilliwack to make declaration about firefighting training standards

A formal declaration is required about Chilliwack's firefighting service levels based on industry training standards
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A file shot of a firefighter recruit searching a 40-year-old house during a training session in Greendale in 2012. (Jenna Hauck/ Chilliwack Progress file)

City council is ready to make a formal declaration about Chilliwack's firefighting service levels based on industry recognized minimum "training standards."

Council has the item on the agenda Tuesday (Jan. 14) to authorize city staff to advise the Officer of the Fire Commissioner that the Chilliwack Fire Department is a "full service/interior operations" department.

That means that as a hybrid fire department in Chilliwack, with a mix of career and paid-on-call staff, it is the career firefighter staff who meet the "full-service operations" minimum level of training, while the paid-on-call staff meet the "interior operations," level, according to the Jan. 6 staff report for council prepared by Fire Chief Andrew Brown.

"These are minimum standards and do not preclude achieving higher levels of training as time and resources allow," Brown wrote in the staff report.

Fire department guidelines, policies and training are covered under the City of Chilliwack's "Fire Department Establishment Bylaw 1996, No. 2314," and that's the bylaw being updated.

The formal declaration of the fire department as Full Service/interior Operations Fire Department "is supported through the operational guidelines, policies and training programs established for the department, and as such the fire department "currently meets the Training Standards," the report stated.

Each local government in B.C. has to declare its firefighting service level in order to determine the minimum training standard to be met.

"This declared level of service needs to be fully reflected in the fire department's operating guidelines, policies and training programs," Brown added.

The newly updated provincial training standards were the upshot of a BC Coroners Service Inquiry into the death of a volunteer firefighter in Clearwater, B.C., derived from work by the Fire Chiefs' Association of B.C. and the Fire Services Liaison Group.

The City of Chilliwack through mayor and council, had established the Chilliwack Fire Department (CFD) "Service Level" in the "Fire Department Establishment Bylaw 1996, No. 2314" and as a result guidelines, policies and training programs have been implemented.

"Once the intended service level is formally declared it is then used to determine the minimum training competencies from the current British Columbia Structure Firefighter Minimum Training Standards (the Training Standards) that must be provided for and taken by that department's fire service personnel," according to the Officer of the Fire Commissioner document.



Jennifer Feinberg

About the Author: Jennifer Feinberg

I have been a Chilliwack Progress reporter for 20+ years, covering city hall, Indigenous, business, and climate change stories.
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