Nunavut’s capital gears up for firefighter recruitment

Iqaluit’s deputy fire chief, George Seigler, hopes to recruit five to ten volunteer firefighters for the city’s fire department this year. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Recruiting volunteer firefighters in the Arctic could be a tough sell, but the Iqaluit fire department manages to do it year after year thanks to residents who are set to take on big challenges.

“There’s nothing quite like being out there in minus 43, fighting a fire,” said George Seigler, deputy chief of Iqaluit’s fire department.

At temperatures below zero for most of the year, keeping water and equipment running is as important as saving lives and property.

Nunavut’s capital city relies on volunteers to fill up to two-thirds of its firefighting force. Anywhere from 10 to 20 volunteers serve at a time.

As is often the case at the start of any given year, the fire department is now looking to top up its ranks for 2015.

“Volunteers make up a big portion of our workforce, and we rely on them heavily,” said Seigler.

The City of Iqaluit’s fire department is down to 11 volunteers, and hopes to train as many as 10 new recruits in its six-month training program this year. Once they complete their training by the start of July, recruits will join the ranks of 18 career firefighters.

“As a volunteer, as soon as you suit up, you’re tasked with the sort of duties that regular career firefighters would be expected to do,” said Wade Thorhaug, one of the department’s newest members.

Like many recruits, he saw the job as a learning opportunity and a chance to become more involved with the community.

“A friend of mine had been [a volunteer firefighter] for a couple of years, and I had heard stories about it,” said Thorhaug, who signed on as a recruit last year, shortly after moving to Iqaluit from southern Canada.

“It’s a lot of skills you can learn, essentially for free, and a set of personal challenges as well.”

Recruits work their way though a three-stage training process, starting with theory in the coldest months of winter — or “book-learning” as lead instructor Lt. Matt Edmunds calls it. Hands-on equipment training starts in March, followed by “live-burn” drills from May to June, he says.

Recruits learn the essentials of battling and dousing a fire with the same equipment used throughout southern Canada and the United States, from hoses and pumps to two-way radios and firefighter suits with a self-contained breathing apparatus.

None of the equipment, however, is actually designed for Nunavut’s Arctic climate. And that’s where volunteer firefighters meet their ultimate challenge.

“It seems the large fires happen in the most difficult time of year,” said Edmunds, “in the coldest months.”

Firefighting becomes a critical battle — to douse flames while preventing equipment from freezing up.

Water moving through hoses must flow continuously, “otherwise when you shut it down, you have a big, large icicle,” Edmunds said.

“When we do get a fire, anyone — volunteer or career [member], has the possibility of doing lots of work, which is physically demanding,” he said. “The cold just beats the living shit out of you.”

Like any other fly-in fly-out community of Nunavut, Iqaluit must also be ready to deal with all emergency calls on its own, with no chance of immediate help from the outside world.

That means Iqaluit volunteers have a chance to learn procedures that are normally taught only to career firefighters.

“We’re looking at false fire calls, to real structure calls, to aircraft emergencies, to mass casualties, to hazmats [hazardous materials],” Edmunds said. “Up here we pretty much have to deal with everything, so we have to train the volunteers to a high level.”

Training takes up more than 12 hours a month for six months and doesn’t stop once volunteers become full members of the department.

“It’s ongoing,” Edmunds said. “The city puts on multiple training courses a year, for different levels.”

About half of the recruits who start training at the beginning of the year typically make it through to the end, and join the fire department.

“Some join and they find it’s not really for them, or they don’t have the time to commit,” said Seigler. “The training is a big commitment.”

Those who do join the department typically stay on for two to four years, so the department puts out a call for volunteers every year in order to keep its ranks filled.

“There seems to be a fairly large turnover, so retention is hard,” Seigler said.

The job “is definitely not just for any type of individual,” said Edmunds. “It’s [for] the active person, who likes to be challenged daily.”

Alex Brisco, a volunteer of almost two years, said he, like most members, was drawn to the challenge of the task, and attracted to the idea of contributing to the community.

As president of the Iqaluit Firefighters Association, Brisco helps recruit new members as well as organize pubic information campaigns, fundraisers, and holiday activities for children and families.

A volunteer’s biggest challenge, given the hard work without pay “is staying motivated, month after month,” he said. “We get a lot of fresh faces in, and then people do it for a few months.”

Interest tends to wane “once the novelty has worn off,” Brisco said.

“That’s a challenge for the fire hall as well, keeping the people coming through the doors, and responding to the late-night calls,” as well as “staying three or four hours after a call, cleaning hoses and stuff. It is a lot of hours of people’s time.”

What makes it all worthwhile in the end is saving property and lives, he says, “where you do feel like you’ve contributed and that your presence was important.”

The Iqaluit fire department is taking applications this month for volunteer firefighter positions. The department’s six-month training program is free of charge, and begins at the end of January.