New enhancements for TFD’s Fire Training Centre

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Taber Times

By Trevor Busch
Taber Times
editor@tabertimes.com

Training is a vital component of ensuring a firefighter is ready to meet the challenges of the job, and when it comes to volunteer departments with significant turnover it’s even more important to make sure people are up to speed.

With that end in mind, Assistant Fire Chief Amy West is tasked with making sure the Taber Fire Department’s personnel are trained to a level adequate for the needs of the service. 

“Over the last year, we ran six firefighters through their 1001, level two. So that’s the second part of the professional firefighter qualifications, where they learn a little bit more advanced firefighting techniques and learn some vehicle extrication and how do you be a supervisor of a crew in a structure fire,” said West. “We put five of our members and had one from a neighbouring department through a Fire Officer 1 training course, so where they learn the basic functions of being a supervisor within a fire department – first line officer, duties, company officer duties.”

Sometimes collaboration with neighbouring departments on training makes sense, says West.

“We ran a driver’s course – fire apparatus driving course – jointly with the MD of Taber Fire Department. So we had four of our members and four MD members through that, and myself and the training officer from the MD co-instructed that one. I ran a NFPA 1002 pump operator course as well. We put four of our members through that so they got certified as pump operators, so that they can operate our engines on fires.”

West detailed some upcoming training members will be involved in. 

“Coming up in the fall, we’ve got a few other things. So we have a fire and live fire instructor credentials, so people who are already certified as a fire instructor, they’re learning how to provide some advanced instruction on specifically live fire training, so in structure fires. So we’re going to be running it at our training center here. We’ve got 24 students, six from Taber and another 18 from all over Western Canada.”

Members don’t have to go out-of-pocket to receive training.

“No, it’s completely provided by the fire department,” confirmed West.

TFD’s Fire Training Centre, located in the town’s north industrial area, is much more than a facility exclusive to local departments.

“We use it for our own ongoing training purposes, but we have had several rentals this year. I know we’ve had five other fire departments come and use it this past year,” said West.

While sharing the facility with other departments in the region represents a rental revenue stream for the town’s department, West was unsure what this number might be in an average year since the facility was completed.

“I can’t give you that number, but typically we rent it out for pretty reasonable costs, just to make sure that we’re recovering our operational costs to run it and any maintenance that might be involved in it. We try to make it as affordable as possible, because most of our people that come and rent it are also paid on call or volunteer fire departments. Our rental rate is $100 an hour for just the facility, and we provide a safety officer to make sure that everything’s running according to our procedures. So it’s $100 an hour. Most fire rentals are an eight hour rental, but sometimes they’re a little bit shorter. We do have Coaldale will just come out for a training night. So that’s a two to three hour rental.”

Various training levels and certification must be maintained, says West, as ongoing training is a part of every firefighter’s career.

“So there are certain certifications that we have to do. We do it on an ongoing basis, the 1001 training. There is a part one and a part two to that. So we alternate the years. So for example, in 2024 we did a level two. In 2025 I’ll be running another 1001 level 1. So it kind of alternates. The driver training we do every year, because we need to make sure we have competent drivers to move the fire apparatus when we need it, and then pump operator and aerial operator. We do the same thing, we alternate the year. So this year, in 2025 I’ll be running an aerial operator, and then so forth to keep alternating back and forth with the other ones that we do. We don’t have them on a set schedule, but we do alternate as needed, is the fire instructor course – the officer course – and those are just professional development as we start to succession plan for the department. The HAZMAT is another one that we usually run annually, so hazardous materials awareness and operations.”

Various improvements to the TFD’s Fire Training Centre have enhanced the facility in 2024, according to West.

“Last year, we did put some additions out there. So we laid a concrete pad down for our propane props, so we have some propane props out there. We got a car frame welded that we can actually slide our propane fire tray under to simulate vehicle fires. So that’s been an awesome addition to the training centre. And we’ve got some other propane props that we put out there, such as a gas riser and propane tree, they call it, where you can do valve shut-off training. We have added in a portable generator that’s been wired underground so that we have a power source out there. Previously, we were using portable generators off of our units. And then the second phase of that is we’re working on getting some yard lighting installed off of that power source as well.”

West finds her biggest challenge to be handling the volume of training needs for the department, which keeps her very busy.

“Probably the one-man training division and the limited staffing. There’s a lot of things that we would love to do here, but when you have limited full time staffing, it’s hard to achieve everything that you want. So you find yourself between trying to find a balance between what we need to do, what’s necessary, and what we would like to do. So a lot of the training focuses around the necessities of what we have to do, and we keep having to go back to that as we recruit more people and making sure that everyone’s trained to the minimum standards. So in that sometimes I find there’s a lot of professional development or extra advanced training that I would love to get to that sometimes has to get sacrificed because of the the abilities here.”

West reiterated her enthusiasm for the live fire training that is upcoming for department personnel and others.

“The one coming up in October is the biggest one, the live fire instructor credentials. So what that one entails is every student or participant in it does have to be already instructor certified. And like I said, we do have six of our paid on-call members that are fire instructors that currently help me out with our Tuesday trainings and stuff. So they’re going to learn a little bit more about how to instruct in a live fire setting, as well as how to run a training centre, so how to set up a burn room in a safe manner at a fixed facility training centre. It’s going to be really beneficial for our department and give us a little bit more capacity in running those rentals out of the training centre. And also it’s bringing in 18 firefighters from other communities into Taber, and they get to see our facility and learn here and go through that as well. So, really good.”

Recruitment drives have been successful recently, says West.

“We recruit every six months – really great. Just a shout out to the community that we’ve had lots of interest in our recruitment the last couple times. So it’s great to see how many Taberites are interested and willing to want to help the community and get involved.”