Norfolk County’s volunteer fire department is looking for reinforcements. But first, fire prevention officer Cory Armstrong-Smith wants to clear up a few misconceptions.
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“For starters, it’s not really volunteer,” he said.
Norfolk’s 254 firefighters are paid an hourly rate for mandatory training — two hours a week — and time spent responding to calls. The volunteer moniker is a carry-over from an earlier era in firefighting.
“We refer to it as a paid on-call firefighter,” Armstrong-Smith said.
Next, while emergency calls can come in at any hour, firefighters are not required to drop everything every time their pager beeps.
If a firefighter is stuck at work or busy out of town, “we’re not really expecting you to show up,” Armstrong-Smith said.
The system works because each station is intentionally overpopulated with firefighters who work a variety of shifts for their day jobs.
“The idea being that roughly a third of them will be able to respond, and that will almost fill or completely fill a truck,” Armstrong-Smith said.
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“Instead of paying 12 full-time wages, we’re paying 20 people to respond for one or two hours. That’s the business model of volunteer firefighting.”
A third myth is every recruit is a gym rat. While prospective firefighters do have to pass a basic fitness test, Armstrong-Smith said people of all sizes and body types are welcome to apply.
Having useful skills is more important than looking buff, he said. Tradespeople understand what happens to a building as it is devoured by fire, while bilingual firefighters can communicate with residents who do not speak English.
“Most of our job is people care. So people who are good with people are absolutely fantastic,” Armstrong-Smith said.
“Because when the building’s burning down, there’s a very distracted family standing out front that needs direction.”
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Armstrong-Smith is heartened to see more women and residents from diverse ethnic backgrounds showing interest in the fire service.
“The more diverse we are, the better,” he said.
The department currently seeks applications to fill vacancies at the Fairground, Langton, Port Rowan, Simcoe, Vittoria and Waterford stations.
Residents who live in those areas have until Aug. 26 to apply through the department’s website.
No previous firefighting experience is required. Applicants need to have a clean criminal background check to apply, with written and physical aptitude tests to follow in early September.
The fire department will host open houses from 6 to 8 pm on Aug. 13 at the Simcoe fire hall and Aug. 15 at the Langton station, with firefighters on hand to talk about the realities of the job.
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New recruits receive six months of intensive training in emergency driving, fire chemistry, ground ladder operations and structural search and rescue.
The certification process is the same as that for paid firefighters in urban centers, and it is not uncommon for Norfolk firefighters to parlay their experience into a full-time job elsewhere, Armstrong-Smith noted.
Call volumes range from a few dozen a year at rural stations to several hundred in Simcoe.
Among the most common calls are car crashes and false alarms, along with medical emergencies where firefighters use their basic life-support training to “get things started” before paramedics arrive, Armstrong-Smith said.
Firefighting can take an emotional toll, as seemingly benign calls can get hairy in a hurry.
“We try to warn as best we can. But you really have to know yourself and know what you’re going to be like around traumatic situations,” Armstrong-Smith said.
“That’s the nature of this work. It’s not for the faint of heart, for sure. But you are helping your community.”
JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
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