A newly unveiled fire department master plan calls for the Town of Olds to hire two full-time deputy fire chiefs, convert a part-time administrative position to full-time and recruit 10 more firefighters over the 10-year life of the plan -- or perhaps longer.
The goal of the changes, especially those involving the deputy chiefs and the office administrator, is to prevent fire department Chief Justin Andrew from becoming "burnt out," said Suzanne Charbonneau of Dillon Consulting Limited, the Oakville Ont. company that created the plan.
"Your current fire chief is operating over capacity and has a risk for burnout if no additional support is provided," she said.
Charbonneau unveiled the 263-page plan, including recommendations, on Oct. 7 during town council's policies and priorities meeting.
During an interview with the Albertan, Mayor Mike Muzychka was asked if property taxes will go up in the town as a result of the recommendations.
He stressed council has only accepted the report. The recommendations within it will now be up for review during council's budget discussions which get underway in early November.
"We'll have to see what the budget looks like. It's an all encompassing thing. And what level we do right away is all subject to approval, so I can't comment on that at this point in time," Muzychka said.
"You have to look at the budget as a holistic thing and then we'll prioritize these and see what the recommendation from the chief is, so I could not even speculate."
One recommendation is to hire a full-time deputy fire chief of operations and training. Another is to hire a full-time deputy fire chief of fire prevention and public education.
Charbonneau said a study undertaken by her firm indicated that the workload undertaken by two current deputy fire chiefs who are paid on an on-call basis "was not sustainable."
"Adding the full-time deputy chief positions (is) intended to relieve some of the pressure and demands from your paid on-call deputy chief positions," she said, adding that the roles and responsibilities for the paid on-call deputy fire chiefs would have to be revised in light of the proposed full-time deputy chief positions.
She said the recommendation to increase the fire department's administrative support position from the existing 0.8 FTE to a full-time equivalent position also involves "and revising the roles and responsibilities of this position to align more closely with a position such as a corporate office administrator."
Currently, the Olds Fire Department consists of about 40 paid on-call firefighters. The report recommends gradually recruiting 10 more, due to concerns about work/life balance.
"Your existing complement of 40 paid on-call firefighters is showing signs of stress and vulnerability" Charbonneau said.
"Increasing the total number of paid on-call volunteer firefighters to 50 is considered to be an effective strategy to address the sustainability of the paid on-call model and to divide your workload demands across a greater number of personnel."
Coun. Wanda Blatz noted during earlier discussions regarding the master plan, it was suggested that the town should "lead by example" by allowing some of its employees to become paid on-call firefighters.
Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt agreed with that idea.
"That is a conversation that you had and that is a conversation that we had internally as well. And I agree one hundred per cent that we have to lead by example. If we expect businesses and other people to allow their employees to fight fires in our town and outside, we should be doing the same," he said.
"So it's not out of the question. It's something we'll be working with council on."
The report also recommended setting a target for initial response by firefighter crews of a minimum of four firefighters on-scene before fire suppression activities begin. The target "depth response" as others arrive on-scene is a minimum of 15.
Charbonneau said the current urban standard is 15 firefighters responding in nine minutes of combined turnout plus travel time.
"This is considered to be the initial on-scene staffing level to effectively and safely conduct fire suppression operations within the town of Olds," she said. "Achieving the standard today is a challenge for the Olds Fire Department."
Fire Chief Justin Andrew said currently, most of the fire department's responses to all kinds of calls -- including structure fires -- "are going to be in that 11 to 14-minute mark, which for a municipality our size with a paid on-call response model as we have, is a pretty reasonable and again, a very good response for the service that we're offering."
He said the department always tries to respond with an initial crew of four, but if that's not possible, "we would still respond with what we had. We would immediately initiate mutual aid with a neighbouring community."
Charbonneau said seniors (65 and over) represent one of the highest fire risk groups across the province and across the country, based on (the) residential fire death rate.
She said Olds currently has a higher proportion of seniors compared to the province; 21 per cent in Olds versus 11 per cent in Alberta.
She said the top fire hazards within the town of Olds include major road vehicle accidents, high intensity residential fires, tornadoes and the transportation of hazardous materials, including those carried by railways or on the road.
She also cited marijuana grower and producer Sundial Growers as a a risk.
"Due to the economic role within the community, as well as historic fire loss and building area risks, the Sundial Growers reflects a special risk identified for the town of Olds," Charbonneau said.
Coun. Heather Ryan asked if when they did their analysis, the report's authors examined communities throughout Alberta that are the same size Olds and what practices are are working for them.
"We didn't do a specific case study comparison, but we as a firm have done quite substantial work within the province of Alberta in similar communities and those were certainly in our minds," Charbonneau said.
"Although we do typically like to be clear that no two communities are alike and it's very (much) based on your own specific community's risks and circumstances."
The report recommends that the plan be reviewed five years in to see how it's working out.
Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt described the report as "very good." He stressed that just because the report has been presented, that doesn't mean all the recommendations have to be implemented, or implemented immediately.
"You don't see everything happening next month. It is a 10-year plan and it gives us lots of time to obviously think about how we're going to implement that strategy and deal with all those recommendations, because we could never do it all at once," Merritt said.
"We may not follow it to the nth degree, but it will be our road map, I'm thinking, as we go into the future."
Andrew said the report has been in the works for about a year, after he and Merritt came up with the idea to have one done.
"We spoke about what the direction of the fire department in the long term was going to be and there's no better way to do it than get somebody who has an outside perspective that doesn't have influences or biases of being local in that they can give us that big picture from industry best standards and comparisons to other municipalities that' they've worked with," he said.
Merritt said the long-term strategic fire services master plan cost the town $75,000. Earlier, a regional fire services report for Mountain View County cost $50,000 and was paid for via a provincial grant.
