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Q&A with Fire Chief Kent Readman

It has been about 18 months since the new mandatory minimum certification standards went into effect for Ontario’s fire service. Kent Readman, fire chief of the Municipality of Huron East and the Township of North Huron and board member for the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs, spoke with Fire Fighting in Canada about how the mandatory certification process is going, and what he’s seen from volunteer fire departments.

FFIC: As the fire chief of Huron East and North Huron, can you tell me a little bit about your fire departments? 

Readman: In East and North Huron, we have two fully separate fire departments located in Huron County. We operate under a Shared Fire Chief Agreement, so I’m the chief of both, but they are two separate departments. In total, there are five fire stations staffed with about 115 volunteer firefighters responding to close to 350 calls per year. Our area is predominantly agriculture-based, and we’re roughly an hour north of London and an hour west of Kitchener/Waterloo.

FFIC: Being on the OAFC’s board of directors and having over 20 years of experience in volunteer fire fighting, with the past six years in the role of fire chief, what’s the biggest change you’re seeing when it comes to training firefighters? 

Readman: I think the biggest change I’ve seen is that there’s more information than ever before. Technology has improved over the past 20 years, and now we have more access to information. We can build our operations and our training programs based on science and data – we didn’t typically do that before. We now have a much better understanding of things like modern fire science, firefighter health and safety, new vehicle technology and other hazards that our firefighters can potentially face on a daily basis. With the increase of the internet and YouTube, information is more freely shared and more accessible than ever before.

FFIC: How has that impacted training for firefighters?

Readman: In most cases, it’s made for higher-quality training. In a lot of cases, we’ve changed the way we train our firefighters using the science and the data, and explaining why we’re doing things.

FFIC: Mandatory minimum certification standards were introduced in Ontario on July 1, 2022. How has the rollout gone? 

Readman: It’s all over the board right now. Some departments have been very proactive and started certifying their members prior to the legislation taking effect, so they’re sitting in a good spot. Other departments are unfortunately lagging behind a little bit, and are working through the process. We still have roughly two and a half years, but that time will go pretty quickly for a lot of departments, and we all should have a pretty solid plan in place to accomplish this at this point, but I don’t think everyone’s necessarily there yet.

FFIC: What strategies have you used to get your volunteer firefighters certified? 

Readman: We’ve taken an in-house approach to certification in most cases. There are some courses that we go external with, but we try not to as much as possible. A few examples: currently we’re utilizing a learning contract with the Ontario Fire College to put 13 of our members through the NFPA 1002 Pump-Ops Course. We have our own in-house instructors, we utilize the Ontario Fire College learning materials and online pre-course platform, we use our own trucks and equipment for the course and we’re able to keep all of our members in our community, so they can still respond if needed, and they’re at home every night of the course so we don’t have to send them out of town and pay for hotels. It’s keeping our people local. Another example: we’ve also set up testing with Academic Standards and Evaluation (ASA) to come and complete our first round of NFPA 1001 level one testing in December. As part of this process, we utilize our members’ past training and experience, and then we supplement that with additional in-house training to give them the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. It’s not only for the testing, but operationally, we want them to understand what they’re learning. We’re not just prepping them to pass a test, we’re prepping them to be safe on the fire ground. Again, in this situation, we’re utilizing our own in-house instructors and experience to help our firefighters succeed while we keep them in their communities, so it’s the same idea.

FFIC: Did you face any resistance from them in terms of the time they need to invest? 

Readman: There’s still some confusion around the difference between training and certification. The new standard is the certification, not necessarily the training. The requirement to train our firefighters to the level of service they provide has always been there under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. So, if your department’s been training to the proper standards in the past, then the certification requirement really only comes down to writing the test and completing some practical evaluations in front of an evaluator, so it’s not extremely time consuming. If your department has not been training to the proper standard or the levels of service they provide, then there could be an increased time commitment to become properly trained before you can go through that certification process. Currently, one of my departments has had a very well-developed training program for years, so they’re at the point where we can do testing at any time. The other department is lagging behind a little bit, so we’re working on improving the regular training programs to bump them up to where they need to be; they’ll be in a good position to do that certification in not too long of a time.

FFIC: For a department that has been training up to standards, how much extra time is needed to complete the certification? 

Readman: With recruits who have no prior experience and are starting from scratch, we’ve been running a 250-hour recruit program. In speaking with other chiefs, to meet the full certification training level, that’s where they’ve been at, is that 200 to 250 hours. But for our current members who’ve already completed half of that training, you’re looking at half that time.

FFIC: What do new volunteers think of the new requirements? 

Readman: Overall, we’ve taken the approach where we’re very upfront during the hiring process, setting out the new requirements to make sure they’re prepared, so they know what’s involved and they know they’re getting certifications at the end of this. Overall, we’ve had a lot of success and recruits are, in my experience, embracing this. They’re looking at it as a professional qualification process, as opposed to a club that they’re joining to put in a little extra time and help their community out. They’re looking at it from more of a professional and safety aspect. Some are using it as a stepping stone to move into a full-time career because we’re giving them the same certifications as what they would get going to college and then paying for that education – we’re going to pay them for that education. So, it’s all in the way you present it, and you get the buy-in from the recruits. There’s the odd one that finds it’s more than they expected, but for the most part, we’ve had quite a bit of success.

FFIC: Do you feel there are enough mobile live fire training (MLFT) units in the province to accommodate the demand? 

Readman: Currently there are two, which we know is not enough. Lots of departments haven’t had the opportunity to use an MLFT yet – they’ve applied and there’s not enough time to get people through. Our department had the opportunity to use it in June to complete some live fire training, and we were able to open it up to some of our neighbouring departments in the area who were also able to use it, so that was great. In September, the province announced they’re purchasing two more MLFTs to fulfill the needs of the Ontario fire service. I think this is a huge step forward, and a big commitment to providing departments with the tools they need to meet these new requirements. The OFM is monitoring how many departments are applying for these, and how many are actually getting the MLFTs, so I’m confident if they continue to do this and expand the program as needed that the gap will be filled.

FFIC: How is the need to attain NFPA 1001 impacting other trainings needs, such as medical or technical rescue? 

Readman: This new regulation has given fire departments a reason to look at the services they’re currently providing. If they take the new certification regulation and couple it with the new community risk assessment regulation, that allows departments to look at the risks within their communities and create a plan on how to deal with those risks. It’s an opportunity to educate the councils on the level of service they’re currently providing, the training requirements that go with them and if they meet the risk assessment within the community. If the risk isn’t there, do they need to be training on it or are there technical rescues that they’re training on, but don’t need to provide that service? Is there a need for a technical rescue and they’re not training on it? This is giving departments and councils a real push to look inside of themselves to see where they’re at, and where they need to be in the future. Council ultimately sets the level of the service, which then needs to be properly funded and equipped to provide the training to meet that level of service. Again, it comes back to how have they been training in the past. If they’re meeting the training standards in the past, the certification part shouldn’t affect things too much. If they haven’t been meeting that training standard then they have to fill that gap.

FFIC: Do you have any advice to offer Ontario fire departments who are struggling to meet the requirements on a cost and attainability front? 

Readman: Look at the different options that are available to do the certification process. The college can offer courses, there are regional training centres that offer the courses, which I understand not everyone has a regional training centre in their backyard, but work with the fire college to see what training options there are for your department. There’s the possibility of them coming into your department and teaching a course, there’s the opportunity to do a learning contract, which I’ve used a number of times for a number of different courses. If you have those trained instructors in-house, utilize them. Let them do the teaching and work with the college on a learning contract where they send you the material, you have your in-house instructors, they’ll set up ASA to do the evaluating and proctoring at the end of your course – that’s a nice way to keep your costs down and keep everyone in town. Developing a quality training program in-house is the best way to keep your costs down, within your own ranks and your department, that’s going to be key to your success moving forward. If you are struggling, the college and fire marshal’s office are happy and willing to answer any questions that chiefs might have out there on how to move this process along in their own department. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.