YORKTON – Yorkton Fire Protective Services announced a training program delivered through YFPS to aid in recruiting new firefighters.
Yorkton This Week spoke with Chief of Yorkton Fire Protective Services, Trevor Morrissey, about the upcoming program.
"There's a lack of training in the area with the fire colleges—the number of recruits or the number of qualified individuals applying is decreasing,” said Morrissey, noting that attrition rates in the province are going up as well.
"We've had to come up with a creative approach to how we're going to do this," said Morrissey, adding, “we're going to put the professional qualifications for firefighter training on here—we're going to do it ourselves."
"It's a certified program, so we're going to put people through the program with the expectation that it'll be for our hiring," said Morrissey.
Morrissey said that the program will take people with no training or experience and give them the knowledge and skills required to apply for positions within YFPS.
"The idea behind our acceptance into this program—we're looking for that local flavour I guess,” said Morrissey, adding, "when you're hiring people from Alberta—well—you know they want to go back to Alberta."
"We know that there's a lot of local guys or local young fellas who maybe didn't want to go to university or college and are more than qualified to complete the training," said Morrissey, adding, “those are kind of [people] we want to target."
"The application process for the program will be just like hiring on here—there will be an interview process, there will be a physical fitness test and then there will be ongoing examinations throughout the program—it will be like us running our own college program right here in the department," said Morrissey.
Morrissey said that the announcement has garnered the public's interest.
"We've got ten people signed up to come for the information night," said Morrissey, noting that numbers for the program will be limited.
"It's got to be manageable for us—with this kind of program you need numbers so that people can work together,” said Morrissey, adding, "it's not the kind of program you can run on your own—it's pretty hard to run a team scenario with one person."
Though no definite timeline was available, Morrissey anticipated the educational program would last from five to six months to receive professional qualifications once implemented, noting that “a lot of that is dependent on the province and when they can do the actual certification.”
“The province has the ability to certify so they come in and do independent evaluations and that evaluation gives [the trainees] IFSAC (International Fire Service Accreditation Congress) certification—which is the same certification you would get from Parkland College or Brandon Fire College,” said Morrissey.
“The nice thing about it is we can use our equipment and we can train people on everything around here and how our department works specifically—which only makes them better suited for hiring,” said Morrisey.
An information night for the program is scheduled for October 13th at 6:00 p.m at the Yorkton Fire Hall. Individuals interested in the program should contact YFPS at 306-786-1795 to make arrangements to attend.
