ATHABASCA – Athabasca County took another step towards a major change in how it delivers fire services when councillors got the chance to ask Lac La Biche’s protection services chief questions during a presentation on their new fire master plan.
During their June 20 committee of the whole meeting, councillors got their eyes on the new Athabasca Fire Services Master Plan, which addressed a November 2022 fire services review conducted by TSI. Councillors voted 7-0 — councillors Natasha Kapitaniuk and Rob Minns were absent — in favour of having the review and the master plan presented to county council for approval at the June 29 meeting.
Alongside the master plan, which was included in the agenda, was a 90-minute presentation from John Kokotilo, Lac La Biche County’s protective services chief who walked them through some of the important aspects he had found from the review, and shared his own experiences with taking Lac La Biche through the same process.
“I see that Athabasca is sustainable and I think that the goal can be achieved; you’ve got good stations, good membership, it looks like you have a good thing going,” said Kokotilo. “The bottom line is that we serve the public, that’s what we’re here for and we have to do our best to achieve that level of service.”
Kokotilo identified eight main points that would help shape the county’s long-term plan, noting that it took Lac La Biche roughly five years to get to the point that he had envisioned. The 46-page master plan is based off of the 100-page review put together by TSI, which took four months to develop, and cost the county $65,000.
“It’s important to note that this (master plan) is a living document that can be edited. Additions, deletions and changes can all be made at any time,” said Kokotilo. “I would hope that it would be reviewed by (council) with the fire chief or the new regional fire chief.”
During the May 16 committee of the whole meeting, TSI highlighted 16 things that they assigned with an immediate priority, including development of a mandatory health and wellness program, a separate level-of-service (LOS) policy, and the creation of a unified training program.
Kokotilo categorized many of TSI’s recommendations and his own as governance and administration; while there were some issues like non-standardized training and equipment that both parties recommended the county fix, most of the changes will be on the administrative end.
“These administrative changes are situated throughout the entire master plan; they aren’t just on one page they’re all over,” said Kokotilo. “Things like ensuring mutual-aid agreements are in place, ensuring occupational health and safety guidelines and procedures are there, that reporting is in place. Some of these stations have next to no reporting currently.”
Creating a standardized level of service was another major point for Kokotilo, and he drew from his own experiences to drive the point home.
“Right now, what everybody expects is that our people are going to be able to go in and do interior attack, save the babies, get out, put out all the fires, and that really isn’t the case,” he said. “Not everyone can do that, they have to be structural firefighters, they have to have the right training. You can get there but right now we only have a couple of stations that can provide interior attack, as an example.”
Ultimately, Kokotilo stressed cooperation with other departments and the stations within the county and the importance of standardization.
“There’s going to be a lot of lessons learned this year, we were on fire,” he said. “I commend this committee and I commend the vision for doing this as it’s very important. It helps your neighbours, it helps everybody, and I wish you all the best with this.”
