The City of Terrace has announced its plans to expand the roster of serving firefighters in that community, issuing a Call for interest for those considering service as a paid on call volunteer for hybrid department that serves the Skeena Valley community.
The recruiting drive gets underway with the initial call for paid volunteers coming by way of social media.
Terrace has a mixed professional/volunteer service, it last listed 10 full time firefighters and up to 30 volunteer members in service for the city.
Though there are plans for a slight increase to the number of full time members.
The difference between the Career firefighters and those paid volunteers, is that for the volunteer component to be paid for those fire calls that they are called for, as well as any training sessions.
The full background to the Terrace program is available for review here.
The Terrace approach to fire fighting is significantly different than that found in Prince Rupert, with this community using a completely professional component for the First Avenue Fire Hall.
The staffing includes Fire Chief, 1 Deputy Chief, 4 shift Captains and 20 career Firefighters. The City of Prince Rupert also operates an Emergency Dispatch offie out of the Fire Hall.
The Fire Service accounts for an important element of the Civic Budget each year, last year saw the city spending over 3 million dollars in salaries and expenses alone towards the PRFD membership.
The differences between the two fire services made for some discussion at Prince Rupert City Council last November.
Though the option to explore a similar service component for Prince Rupert is not a theme that this current council collective; or those Council's previous to it have had munch interest in.
More notes on the work of Emergency Responders across the region is available here.
Ive never understood why the need for soo many firefighters in the one of the rainiest cities in North America.
ReplyDeleteHow many fires do they attend annually to justify the need for 26+ full time staff? Most of the time they are seen cruising around, washing their trucks and doing drills behind the Lester Centre?
Their salary is on par with the Vancouver Firedepartment and eclipses the New York FireDepartment.
There is an increase in crime, vandalism, speeders, and theft. Why not supplement their budget to obtain more RCMP officers?
Any major fire that has taken place in the last few years has left the building/structure derelict, and just a mess. Maybe just let it burn down and make sure the fire doesn’t spread? Pretty sure trained volunteers can produce the same outcome.
Terrace, Kitimat, Smithers and most other northern communities seem to understand how the volunteer system works. With a lesser population and damp climate, why can’t PR?
Kitimat is career fire department. No volunteers.
DeleteAlso as someone who has lived in those other communities with volunteer services, I am grateful for the Prince Rupert Fire quickness when we called 911 for my mom they were there within 4 minutes and saved her. Compared to an experience I had in terrace where it was over 20 minutes for the fire department to show up. I don’t know what makes for the time differences between the two cities. My 2 cents
Is that an average response time? Figures and data to back that claim up?
DeleteKitimat offers dual service. Fire and Parametric. Kitimat Fire and Ambulance also responds to Specialty services which include hazardous materials and technical rescue call. They have one of the most diversified Fire Departments within British Columbia.
Guess how much the kitimat Fire cheif made in 2022? $153,910.66.
City of Prince Rupert fire Cheif made almost $100,000 more ($245,000). The same correlates with the average firefighter wage between both communities. Are the PR firefighters going above and beyond the kitimat ones?
kitimat - 3190 call outs responds
PR - 1274 responses
Read the annual reports and what each service provides and you be the judge on what the taxes payers are paying for and ultimately receiving. We’re talking a lot of “cents”
Interesting claim you make about being the most diversified dept in the province. Other than ambulance I see their service being on par with what most provincial depts have to offer. Also about the average firefighter wage between Kitimat and PR, if you actually look at Kitimats Sofi there’s a lot of 140k+, with a deputy chief making nearly 174k, admittedly it’s not 245 like the chief here but it’s comparable to the rest of the wages for Pr
DeleteI don’t know the average. I have called 911 for my mom twice and don’t understand what you are trying to “catch” me on. I was just providing my experience with medical emergencies.
DeleteAlso in the case of my moms emergency, the firefighters in PR were there for 30mins giving mom oxygen and breathing for her before an ambulance came with only one medic so the firemen had to drive the ambulance(the ambulance guy said it’s because the other ambulances were busy at other calls). I wonder what the case is for the ambulance service and wait times are for the fire crews in Kitimat?
Do you have any where to access that information so I can be better informed? You have created some interest and I think it’s important for citizens to be informed thank you
Glad that your moms was looked after well.
DeleteA lot of this information can be found on each city’s website
Annual reports, financial statements, all made available to the public
The thing that consistent is the annual increase, year after year, in Firefighter salary and the high percentage of the total city salary it takes up. More people should be made away as it’s a large portion of our taxes. Pay close attention to the 2023 SoFI coming out this summer and watch their wage drastically increase with no real increase in services.
We all complain about water but firefighter salaries get overlooked. Look at the name in the SoFI report. All the top earners outside directors, and the CAO are fire fighters.
Rupert firefighters are NOT first responders within the city anymore. They only go out during certain codes. Fortunately for your mother, she got assisted when they were still making those calls.
So once again, why are PR firefighters making more than a Kitimat Firefighter/paramedic hybrid? That conduct less call outs and don’t deal with Port or other industrial fires. Council just skirt around this issue and should really do their homework. A simple google search of “what does an average firefighter in Canada make” will make you question why PR Firefighters almost triple the national average. Tax payers are literally getting hosed
This was 2 months ago for my mom. When did they change services? At the start of January they came for her as first responders?
DeleteIt will be interest to see the 2023 and compare it to Kitimat and terrace. My cousin said that the Kitimat fire fighters actually make more per hour? Will have to do research like you said to verify.
It is interesting that I just did google search and Kitimat and terrace are hiring more firefighters right now also. (Maybe a trend in the northwest area?) Kitimat fire wages is max $67.55 per hour on the posting. I wonder what it is for Prince Rupert?
Will keep my nose to the ground and hopefully find out more
My sons work at port so why don’t fire fighters go to port fires? Seems crazy that they don’t, maybe has something with taxes otherwise that seems crazy and makes me worry about my son.
DeleteI remember a couple years ago the pellet plant had a big fire and the fire man went all the way up and put out fire (niece has a good video of the fire). Do u know if pellet plant is port property? maybe that the port has their own firemen they pay for.
god bless
I think you hit the nail on the head with using the term major fires, think of the countless fires that are kept small enough that you don’t hear of them because of the work done by your fire department. Maybe terrace is switching to a paid model and getting away from volunteers cause it’s a system that no longer works. How hard is it to get employees these days let alone volunteers?
ReplyDeleteIt’s a small city and now with social media, you hear about all fires, large or small. “Paid Volunteers” is the model Terrace is using and adverting in this article. There are no indications of switching from it nor stating it’s not working.
DeleteFull time firefighters are needed that’s fact, but why soo many? And why are they the top earners by a large margin? More so than any other municipally in pretty much Canada? Why not try to implement more volunteers. Port Edward doesn’t seem to have any issue with recruiting nor the other communities mentioned. Chance at learning, getting some training in a new career. I bet there would be lineup of volunteers. Especially a paid volunteer.
Paid on call is the model they have just switched to from volunteer. I wonder if it’s because it’s so hard to find volunteers. I’d like to see the numbers of volunteers port Ed fire has and how their attendance is.
DeleteI know in Smithers it’s very hard to find high quality volunteers and that’s not who I want to save my family if a fire happens in our house
DeleteAccording to 2022 CoPR financial statement; Fire Chief Made over $245,000 (Highest paid city employee over the CAO). The rest of the firemen averaging $140,000 - $200,000.
ReplyDeleteAccounting for almost 35% of the City’s Total salary base.
Councillors and elected officials don’t want to talk about the firemen’s salary and implementing a Volunteer system? Is it possibly due the perception of their “hero”, “putting their lives at risk” and “front line workers” status? With such a large tax hit, it’s something that needs to be looked at and compared to other municipalities.
A lot of firemen coming to work and gain local tax payer funded training here from other “volunteer” communities to work$$$ and once a “non volunteer” role opens up somewhere else they are the first to leave (Deputy chief moved to Terrace once the new role came up)
No wonder no one wants to be a paramedic or nurse these days. Getting paid peanuts compared to these guys that essentially do less.
I guess administration will decide they deserve another bonus. They don't until all the plywood over the windows in town is gone.
ReplyDeleteI often see comments like this and don't understand what scale city administration (or any level of government) is measured to be compensated with a bonus?
DeleteWhat sort of target are they achieving?
Looking at the SOFI I assume a bonus isn't required to be reported separately from remuneration and taxable benefits, but I'm not an accountant. In my years in sales, my bonus wasn't reported separately but for public sector I'm curious. NCR...do you know?
City, provincial and federal employees do NOT get bonuses. Unless they get some sort of under the table” payment, which is illegal. Their wage is exactly as shown. Training, reimbursements, travel, etc is also shown in separate columns. Anything Tax payer funded must have a SoFI list. SD52 has a list as well, and some of the top names and salary’s would surprise you.
DeleteThe Port Authority however does give out bonuses. Their system isn’t as cut and dry. They have Federal benefits but act as a private entity.
I am very interested to see this years sofi. It was a drastic jump for 2021 to 2022. The 2023 report will either show if the 2022 numbers are the norm or it shows their 2022 salary or a salary + bonus or back pay (like the rcmp just had).
DeleteI’d love to see a separate SOFI analysis conducted just on Firefighters. Each member, years served, total salary %, over fire budget, fire/emergencies attended to and an example of what a regular day to day entails. Also fuel consumed by the fire trucks.
DeleteCity hall shows no fiscal responsibility. On one hand they’re spending money designing a new city logo, have a full-time staff member to make Facebook posts and ballooning the size of the fire department, costing us literally millions. While on the other, they’re crying poor and have increased the burden on taxpayers by raising taxes and utility bills.
ReplyDeleteOur city staff has a monumental task in rebuilding the community but when I see so much money needlessly going out the door it angers me.
They also let CityWest off the hook on paying back their loan. Does CityWest administration get bonuses?
DeleteConsidering everything else Ms Stewart does as the Communications Manager, it’s surprising she has time to make Facebook posts. She’s even responded to me some times. And after office hours. I see her name on everything from all social media including website and app comms to Accessibility, grants, annual report, press releases and everything on engagePR. She handles so much crap flung by the public from tax and utility (finance) to pot holes and road closures (public works) to the roundabout (province!) City Hall is lucky to have her so please don’t think she is there just to make Facebook posts.
DeleteMs Stewart has gone above and beyond on social media platforms informing and correcting misinformation.
DeleteWith anyone and their dog able to post a comment on social media, false information gets passed along as facts very quickly and gain traction.
Sadly, gone are the days where a letter to an editor or opinion had to be well thought out to be published in a news paper. Now it’s someone sitting on the toilet thinking they know facts or solve community issues. People don’t even open the article to read the article before posting comments or east to answer questions about it!
Facebook groups are notorious for random, nonsense, uneducated and inaccurate posts and Ms Stewart does her best to state facts. Kudos to her
Ms. Stewart is also getting paid to put the city spin on it. Nothing wrong here. Someone I read had posted about the great work city staff does in getting grants. It’s their job. Newsflash most cities do this.
DeleteIf the PR firefighters are making on par with Vancouver FD, should mayor and council make the same as well?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot more people would run if they made $200,000 and $100,000 respectively
It makes sense to me that similar jobs across the province make similar/same wages. A nurse here must make the same as a nurse in the lower mainland. I’m thinking there’s gotta even be a northern allowance or something similar just for working in a relatively remote part of the province.
ReplyDelete