Cape Breton Firefighters Union Proposes Rural Stationing of Paid Members

Says stationing paid members in rural areas could improve emergency service access across the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Members of the International Association of Firefighters local 2779 are concerned over uneven response levels outside the city, said president Dave McLaughlin.

"Some places have full fire services, some have moderate ones and some don't have the same as others, so we have a massive gap in service delivery across the municipality," he said.

McLaughlin said the municipality should station a truck and equipment with four paid firefighters in a rural community in each of CBRM's three geographic divisions — North, Central and East. Union members are fully trained first responders available around the clock, he said, which would place them closer to incidents and improve response times when volunteers are not immediately available.

"So regardless of what type of an emergency, be it a fire-related emergency, a medical-related emergency, a vehicle extrication ... if you were out in a community like Christmas Island ... that zone truck would leave North immediately and head for the direction of Christmas Island to aid and better assist the volunteers," McLaughlin said.

The union has not calculated costs for the plan, but McLaughlin said a uniform fire tax could generate revenue.

Beresford, chief of the Westmount Volunteer Fire

Department and chair of the regional chiefs association, said he had not heard of the proposal but believes it merits discussion. '" he said. Beresford added that protecting residents as quickly as possible remains the priority. CBRM's director of fire services was unavailable for an interview on Monday but stated openness to discussing the idea during an ongoing fire service review.