A hard no

Proposed closure of local fire halls goes up in smoke

A consultant’s report recommending the relocation of the Wellington fire station to County Roads 1 and 2 areas, consolidating Bloomfield and Milford fire stations to a Cherry Valley location, and complete closure of the Amelisaburgh and Cressy fire stations rang alarm bells at the Committee of the Whole last Thursday.

Consultant Phil Dawson, from Emergency Management Group, presented the Prince Edward County Fire and Rescue Community Risk Assessment, Fire Optimization Plan and Station Location Mapping to Council.

“These are not opinion pieces,” stated Dawson. “These studies and reports are based on facts, couched in standards, regulations and industry best practices,” Dawson explained that feedback from the report would ultimately result in draft recommendations to bring to Council.

“When we look at stations, we are looking at facility performance,” said Dawson. “Is it a coded five fire station, or is it a cache for equipment? What exactly is it? We look at the equipment, which includes vehicles, and the staffing as well as a number of incidents it responds to yearly.”

The consultant failed to explain who the “we” were in his assertions. Not many residents or volunteer firefighters share Dawson’s understanding of the “facts”.

Jeff Gray, a Prinyer’s Cove resident, told the committee that leaving the area underserviced would result in higher insurance rates and possibly not being able to secure insurance.

“There is no expectation that the fire trucks are going to arrive at everybody’s house at the same amount of time,” said Gray. “I am farther away. I understand that risk. I always have a small bag of marshmallows because there is not much that is going to be burning by the time you get to Prinyer’s Cove. But I wasn’t expecting to not get any coverage at all.”

Not surprisingly, every member of committee had questions relating to the recommendations.

Councillor Phil Prinzen, also a volunteer firefighter, said he couldn’t understand how the changes would decrease response times.

“As you move halls farther away from volunteers, it doesn’t take a consultant or a mathematician to figure out your response time is going to be slower,” he said. “There are a lot of volunteers who are passionate about their halls. There are a lot of residents in this community who have never complained because they know what the fire service does,” added Prinzen.

He then asked if the volunteers had been consulted during the process.

Dawson replied that there had been consultation.

“My background is 30 years,” countered Dawson. “A third of that as a fire chief in both career and composite departments. We are intimately aware of the importance of fire staff. Yes, there was consultation.”

Councillor Sam Grosso asked what defines an underperforming facility.Dawson listed a series of tests.

“The facility itself—is it classified as a bona fide fire station? How much is it to bring it up to that? The costs and tax maintenance and insurance. The volume of incidents it responds to a year, and are there other options to look at.”

Sensing the conversation was veering off the rails, Dawson tried to take the conversation to a higher level—away from the details of closures. He suggested fire hall renewal was inevitable. That it would be better to get ahead of it.

“What we are attempting to do here today is set up for the reports when they come in,” said Dawson. “These are very relevant and tough discussions.”

Councillor Corey Engelsdorfer asked if growth and development had been factored into the recommendations, suggesting that moving a station out of Wellington was likely counterproductive to fire response times.

While the fire station may not be located right in all of the new development area in Wellington, you can see that the placement at the major intersections resolves other challenges and service deliveries based on the road networking that was analyzed through our GIS system,” said Fire Chief Chad Brown. “It may perceive that you are getting less in one specific spot, but in the decision to move it somewhere else, we are gaining a bunch of other abilities or capabilities in that location.”

Brown added that the Wellington station is slated for replacement in 2027 due to significant compliance issues with the existing building. “The reason of [locating the station at] 1 and 2, that is where we benefit the most from the optimization of covering Ameliasburgh and the future development and growth of the Wellington area,” said Brown.

Councillor Dave Harrison didn’t mince his words.

“I’m going to be perfectly blunt,” said Harrison. “There will be no closing of that Cressy fire station. It isn’t even up for discussion. Half of my constituents would be basically without service,” said Harrison, who noted he had reached out to McDougall Insurance and was told the grey areas on the map would be subject to 200 to 300 per cent increases in insurance rates. “The Cressy station has to stay. You don’t even own the land. You don’t even pay rent there. Period.”

“What I see in this report is nothing but spending money, closing halls and building new halls,” added Councillor Brad Nieman. “As far as I am concerned, we don’t need any part of that. What we have works.”

On that note, Councillor Prinzen put forward a motion to receive the report for information and that the work on the Fire Optimization Study be discontinued. The motion passed.