Nunavik sees improved firefighting tools

Mark Angyiou from the Northern Village of Puvirnituq, Puvirnituq fire chief Tamisa Kiatainak and Craig Lingard, the Kativik Regional Government’s civil security co-ordinator, stand in front of Puvirnituq’s new fire truck. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Puvirntuq’s new fire hall is minutes away from the community’s busy airport. (PHOT0 BY JANE GEORGE)

As Puvirnituq’s fire chief Tamisa Kiatainak, town manager Mark Angyiou and the Kativik Regional Government’s civil security co-ordinator Craig Lingard look around the town’s new fire hall, there’s a lot to be pleased about: a new easy-to-heat space inside and a bright red and white pumper truck.

Since it arrived last year on the sealift, the new truck has been out to fight about a half-dozen fires in the Hudson Bay community of 1,400, none of which were major, Kiatainak said.

The fire truck is an asset to Puvirnituq, which previously relied on an aging truck from the 1980s to fight fires.

The new truck, equipped with heavy duty four-wheel drive, enables it to plow through the worst conditions to get to a fire. There are four seats in the cab, which are also designed to allow firefighters to put on their breathing gear as they drive off to a fire.

A long retractable hose pulls out from the truck when it’s needed. The truck is also equipped with a system that can shoot foam on to fires involving burning fuel — the kind of fires that could take place at the airport nearby.

The new hall and truck are among the tangible results of Nunavik’s five-year $10-million fire safety cover plan, which will see eight more trucks upgraded over the coming three years.

In 2011, fire trucks, worth a total of $1.3 million, also arrived in Kuujjuaraapik, Inukjuak, Kangiqsualujjuaq and Salluit, where members of the local fire departments, like Kiatainak, also received training on how to use the fire pump.

New fire halls have also gone up in Inukjuak and Kangiqsualujjuaq.

Next year the fire truck in Puvirnituq will also be joined by a new emergency response vehicle, which will also be parked in the fire hall.

The fire safety cover plan also means Nunavik’s volunteer firefighters are receiving Firefighter I training programs, Lingard reported recently at the Kativik Regional Government council meeting in Purvirnituq.

In Quebec’s smaller municipalities, with fewer than 25,000 residents, firefighters are supposed to complete this 275-hour training program to obtain their Firefighter I status.

Although more than 200 signed up for the program, Lingard said some communities still lack the 15 aspiring firefighters they should recruit for the program.

And some who took the courses this last year did not pass the exams from Quebec’s firefighter school, l’Ecole nationales des pompiers du Québec.

“[So] training is presently suspended to assess the training program implementation,” Lingard told the KRG councillors.

Statistics contained in his report on the fire safety cover plan show firefighters in all communities still need more training and refresher courses, while some communities, like Kuujjuaraapik, Umiujaq and Inukjuak, also lack firefighters.

But the five-year work plan to bring Nunavik’s firefighting capacity up to Quebec standards is only in its first year, Lingard noted.