B.C. fire services struggle to attract volunteers

By Gerry Bellett, Vancouver SunOctober 29, 2009

B.C’s fire services are having trouble recruiting and keeping volunteers who form the bulk of the province’s firefighting resources, said Stephen Gamble, the president of the Fire Chiefs Association of B.C. Of the province’s 15,000 firefighters, 73 per cent (11,000) are designated volunteers and many of the province’s fire departments who rely on volunteers were having a hard time keeping them, said Gamble, Port Coquitlam’s fire chief, in an interview with The Vancouver Sun. In Metro Vancouver many municipalities such as Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley and Delta rely on volunteers. Other communities such as Vancouver and those on the North Shore employ only salaried firefighters. The association along with the Union Of B.C. Municipalities is expected to release a report on the volunteer problem in early December, said Gamble.