South Okanagan fire chiefs reach deal with employer

A simmering dispute between local fire departments in the South Okanagan-Similkameen and their employer has been extinguished with an operational deal reached last week.

South Okanagan Similkameen Fire Chiefs Association and Kaleden fire Chief Denis Gaudry said the negotiated bylaw will allow fire halls to maintain local control.

“It was important to the six chiefs that the fire departments remain community-based and that we are anchored with the communities that we serve,” he said on Tuesday.

Bill Newell, the chief administrative officer with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS), said each of the seven fire departments were operating under dated bylaws and were reporting directly to the 19-person RDOS board.

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The new bylaw consolidates all of the fire department bylaws to “gain consistency.”

Gaudry said fire chiefs were opposed to centralizing department functions and wanted to have a say in major decisions involving the volunteer-led departments.

“So things like when a fire chief is hired for the community, that the fire department themselves has opportunity to provide input to regional district staff for selection of the chief,” he said.

The provincial government also introduced the BC Structure Firefighter Competency and Training Playbook in 2015 to enforce minimum levels of training for volunteer firefighters.

Gaudry said local fire chiefs wanted to be involved in how the training is rolled out.

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“It was a good thing, but with that, we wanted to make sure as we move forward that the fire departments are engaged in where we go with it,” he said.

Gaudry said he’s happy with the deal that’s been reached and that it’s a pertinent time ahead of the summer fire season.

“We are comfortable with what we got. We wanted to maintain efficiency and direct reporting relationships,” he said.

The bylaw also makes it clear that local fire departments can respond to fires threatening their communities, even if it’s outside their jurisdictions.

“We added a clause in there that if the fire is outside of our district but threatening, the incident commander can make a decision and respond to it so that’s a good thing,” he said.

Newell notes the bylaw also changed the reporting relationship for the fire chiefs to report to the chief administrative officer rather than the board of directors.