ESTEVAN - During Fire Prevention Week, the Estevan Fire Rescue Service took an opportunity to express their gratitude to all the employers of their paid-on-call firefighters.
If not for their support and flexibility, Estevan wouldn't have the great team of dedicated professional firefighters it is proud to have.
"We definitely want to extend a huge thank you to all the employers of our firefighters," said Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser. "Many know, but many don't know, that the city of Estevan is protected by paid-on-call firefighters."
To be a paid-on-call firefighter means to put in endless hours of training to reach a professional level and achieve needed accreditation to then be able to respond to emergencies occurring in the area. But it also means that all those men and women have another full-time job that helps them support their families.
And no matter if they are at work, or are having supper with family or friends, or are sleeping when a call for duty comes, they drop everything and respond.
"To have such a huge base of employers that our firefighters work for, that are very supportive of the fire department, really makes it go round here for us," Feser said.
He added that if not for understanding and support from employers, Estevan would probably have to have full-time crews, which would mean significant expenses on taxpayers' behalf.
Feser also expanded their gratitude over to the families of Estevan firefighters, allowing them to be there when the city needs them.
"Firefighters can be at a birthday party or a wedding or an anniversary. We just don't know when those calls come in. It can be two o'clock in the morning; it can be two o'clock in the afternoon. Oftentimes, they're dropping everything and sometimes their family life suffers. And we want to give a nod and tip of the hat to our families as well that are so understanding," Feser said.
From a moment the call comes in, to arrival on scene, in most cases fire crews have 10 minutes or less within the city boundaries. That's how urgent all firefighters' actions have to be.
"When a call is generated, it goes to the 911 call center. Then once they gather all the data and information, it is sent out to the responding fire department (via) a program called Live responding. We also have a paging system. So they'll receive a message on the phone and their pagers will go off. And then they respond with their phone back whether or not they're able to attend the call,” said Feser.
“And then we collect all that data here at the station. It's projected onto a big screen TV so that we know what our staffing levels are looking like for a particular call. Once they get in the fire station, they get dressed and then they take the proper apparatus or fire trucks to that particular emergency," Feser explained.
All those procedures must happen very quickly, which makes the support and understanding from employers and families even more valuable.
Estevan Fire Rescue Service has a total of 26 paid on-call firefighters, with six of them going for certification at the end of October. After that, about 85 per cent of the EFRS staff will be fully trained.
It takes at least nine months of training with three-hour-long weekly sessions and other training activities to reach the professional level, and that's not including the professional driving portion of the job. However, COVID messed up these procedures as well and extended the training timeframe considerably.
Feser added that they have firefighters who work all kinds of jobs and industries, which is a "real benefit," as it brings in a very diverse set of knowledge and skills.
