Innisfil resident Jim Kay (former Deputy Fire Chief of Toronto) was recently appointed as the new interim joint fire chief for the Town of Innisfil and Bradford West Gwillimbury, and spoke to InnisfilToday about the ongoing pandemic and its effects on fire, rescue, and emergency services.
With over 39 years of fire service experience, Kay will be leading and managing operations at both fire departments as he steps into former Fire Chief Thomas Raeburn's role.
Innisfil Fire & Rescue Services and Bradford West Gwillimbury Fire & Emergency Services have played key roles in ensuring the public has access to fire and safety prevention programs through educational events organized by fire hall staff as directed by the Fire Association.
However, Kay notes that the pandemic has impacted those programs.
“Fire services have three lines of defense – Educate, Code Enforcement (fire prevention), and Emergency Response,” explains Kay. “The first two have been heavily impacted the most by Covid because of a lack of public intervention and education conducted since the pandemic began."
Kay adds that Covid has affected the relationship between the two fire departments and the community after having to close off access to the fire halls to the public. They are also unable to conduct their annual fire prevention programs at local schools due to closures. But Kay assures that service is still available 24/7 and have not neglected any legislature requirements.
“As crews respond to calls of life-threatening situations, we still engage in fire code enforcement,” shares Kay. “We will still do inspections by complaint or immediate threat to life safety issues… but Covid has slowed down a lot of progressive public aspects of fire and rescue services."
Kay shares that although call volumes to Simcoe’s emergency services have remained the same since Covid began, some jurisdiction’s fire calls have diminished as more people stay home. However, for the fire departments, it is taking longer to assist with calls due to cleaning protocols in place before, during, and after each call.
“We have to wear our PPE (personal protective equipment) to protect the public and us while on emergency calls… but we still have to clean the trucks after each call and restore our PPE, so the time on task is taking a little bit longer,” states Kay.
Kay adds that the Fire Association is looking to transition to a virtual model for fire and safety education and prevention tools, while continuing to look for ways to connect with the public.
“There’s negatives to Covid, but also positives to see how we can do things differently," says Kay. “It’s a new way of doing things… sometimes it takes a crisis to challenge the way we do things [but] we focus on keeping the public safe and that’s key."
Kay reminds the public that general emergency lines are always available and to always call 9-1-1 first in the event of an emergency. He encourages the public to contunue to follow Covid guidelines so "we can return to some sort of normalcy."
In the meantime, Kay intends to stay as long as he is required in his interim position with both fire departments and vows to assist both towns where he can.
“It’s really all about the men and women working with us every day, during Covid, helping the public," says Kay.
