Rural fire fighting needs more support before tragedy strikes again

It may never be clear whether two young children who died in a fire on the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation in northwestern Saskatchewan could have been saved if the neighbouring Loon Lake volunteer fire department had shown up when called.

An investigation by the RCMP and Saskatchewan’s Office of the Fire Commissioner is underway and there will likely be an inquest into how the two-year-old boy and 18-month-old girl died in the house fire early Tuesday morning.

Fingers were quickly pointed at the volunteer fire crew from the village of Loon Lake, which did not respond because the First Nation reportedly owed the department about $3,400 for previous fire calls.

Volunteer fire chief Larry Heon has said his trucks would have needed 20 minutes or more to reach the reserve, likely not in time to save the children, who were carried out of the house by a reserve resident said to be their father. The fact the fire crew didn’t go has left members of the First Nation bitter.

The deadly incident underscores First Nations reserves’ special vulnerability to fires within Canada’s fragile, often underfunded network of volunteer fire services.

Most of us who live in big cities take for granted a 911 call will bring fire engines rushing to our door within minutes. But small communities such as Loon Lake (population: 400) often depend on unpaid volunteers who don’t work shifts in fire houses like their big-city colleagues but are called out via pager.

Some rural areas that can’t provide their own fire protection, even on a volunteer basis, rely on contracts with neighbouring communities, which was the case with the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation until recently.

Disputes can arise that lead to departments not responding to calls, said Martin Bell, chief administrative officer and past president of the Canadian Volunteer Fire Services Association.

“It’s not an isolated case,” Martin said in an interview with Yahoo Canada News. “I would not say that it happens often. I have heard of it happening before.

“But when lives are lost, then it becomes an issue that people are paying attention to. You’re quite easily able to jump to the conclusion that this happened because of these few dollars.”


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Martin has been a volunteer firefighter for 36 years in Conquerall Bank, N.S. (population: 580). His firehouse has three trucks and 26 volunteers.

“We talked about it very briefly,” he said. “We said basically that we are glad we are not in that situation. We don’t know how we would handle it.

“We tried not to be judgmental. I think we all agreed this is a terrible situation and surely to God in this day and age in a country like Canada, this shouldn’t happen.”

Major gaps in rural fire protection

There are major gaps in fire protection in rural areas, said Mac Gregory, executive director of the Volunteer Firefighters Association of British Columbia.

“There are a number of rural areas throughout the province that just have no coverage at all,” Gregory, a retired volunteer captain for the Castlegar, B.C., fire department, said in an interview. “They probably end up losing houses and lives.

“The greatest reason is just the dispersement [sic] of population. They just do not have a tax base to cover the cost of training or even buying equipment.”

Neighbouring fire districts often rely on mutual aid agreements to cover each other when needed, said Gregory. But they face potential liability if they respond to fires outside their coverage areas.

“They are funded and licensed only to respond within a certain area and if they go beyond that they don’t get their insurance coverage and they can be liable for whatever may ensue,” said Gregory.

First Nations’ fire protection is supported financially by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. The department allocated $26 million for fiscal 2014-15, with $33,999 for the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation, Emily Hillstrom, press secretary for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, told Yahoo Canada News.

But audited financial statements of the Makwa Sahgaiehcan suggest the First Nation received only $11,000 for this fiscal year, countered Dutch Lerat, vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians.

The Canadian Press reported Thursday the First Nation had a second-hand fire truck but it did not have the right hoses and no one trained to use the equipment.

Regardless of what the figure is, Lerat said it’s not enough to ensure adequate fire protection for First Nations in his province.

He said 30 of them don’t have enough to pay for their own fire hall, equipment, and adequately trained volunteer firefighters. They rely on agreements with neighbouring municipalities for fire services.

Some of them work well, he said, “but the same time when there are challenges [like this fire], that’s when the inconsistencies in providing that safety come into play.”

“Tragedies like this are preventable and First Nations need the capacity to respond to these fires on a moment’s notice,” Lerat said.

Federal report highlights First Nations fire risks

This week’s fire was the third deadly blaze on a Saskatchewan First Nation in the last three months. A 61-year-old woman and her 10-year-old grandson died on the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation north of Saskatoon last month. And last month, a 24-year-old woman and her 10-year-old brother were killed in a fire on the northern English River First Nation.

A June 2010 federal report on aboriginal fire protection strategy for 2010-15 suggests Ottawa knows the scope of the problem.

The report notes the incidence of fire on reserves is 2.4 times higher than other communities, with a death rate 10.4 times more and an injury rate 21.5 times greater, despite millions of tax dollars pumped into improving fire services on reserves.

“Despite these investments, there is need for greater action on fire protection,” the strategy document states.

The situation for First Nations is part of a larger problem of apparent underfunding for fire protection outside Canada’s urban centres.

Canadians might be surprised to learn there are 80,000 volunteer fire fighters who who constitute fire services in roughly 90 per cent of the communities across Canada.

That includes some places you wouldn’t normally associate with volunteer firefighting, such as Ottawa and Halifax.

“It might surprise you that both of those cities have over 1,000 volunteers serving within their fire department.” said Bell.

Most work normal shifts at suburban stations alongside career firefighters, while some outlying fire houses have professional officers leading mostly volunteer crews, he said.

But for the stereotypical small Canadian town with a meagre tax base, being a volunteer firefighter can be hand-to-mouth. While some receive money based on the hours they’re called out, most are unpaid. Some departments rely on charity drives to raise money for equipment.

“I have heard cases where in the wintertime, individual volunteers would chip together so that the oil delivery truck can fill the oil tank at the fire station so the equipment doesn’t freeze,” said Bell.

In that context, he noted, the $3,400 owed to Loon Lake’s department was a lot of money.

Provinces offer little or no support for rural fire services

Provincial governments provide little or no financial support for rural volunteer departments. British Columbia covers costs for the B.C. Forest Service’s wildfire-fighting efforts but not structure fires in rural areas.

“We’ve been working on that problem for a number of years to try and fill in the gaps of covered and uncovered areas,” said Gregory, who added that a surtax on insurance for buildings which was once dedicated to funding fire services long ago was rolled into general provincial revenue.

The federal government honours volunteers with 20 years of service with a certificate and medal, said Martin.

“That’s quite different than bringing in types of legislation that will help them meet their operating costs,” he said.

Martin said his association goes to Ottawa every year to meet with government officials and members of the major parties to discuss the challenges of volunteer departments.

The Makwa Sahgaiehcan tragedy demonstrates the need for action to close the gaps in funding and response time in the sparsely populated parts of Canada, he said.

“Are we going to allow another death to occur because it might be too far to travel or are we going to look at putting some type of fire protection in place?” Martin asked.

“I think that’s a conversation that needs to be had at all three levels of government. I would like to think the federal government would involve us in any type of discussions on this but that would be their choice.”

Back in Saskatchewan Loon Lake’s fire chief and Makwa Sahgaiehcan leaders have already met to ensure what happened Tuesday doesn’t happen again, said Lerat.

“That discussion is already taking place in Loon Lake specifically,” he said.