Photo courtesy Alberton, Chapple, Emo, Lavalle Fire Service

The Alberton, Chapple, Emo and LaVallee Fire Service needs more volunteers.

The service has lost a number of long-serving members to retirement or relocating to another area.

Fire Chief Tyrell Griffith says it is important to have enough trained personnel to respond when called upon.

“We want to avoid any situation where the firefighters that do attend are faced with the possibility of making a difference, but they’re unable to because they don’t have enough members to help them,” says Griffith.

Griffith recalls one northern Ontario department didn’t get more support until after a grass fire nearly levelled nearby buildings.

Griffith says Emo is one area where more personnel is urgently required, given the presence of a hospital, apartment buildings, a school and several commercial properties requiring adequate fire protection.

“We have three members that are well trained and another four that are getting some training and experience, but you can’t get that experience overnight. Then we have a number of members that can fulfill some of the support duties and non-hazardous duties on the fire team, but we really need to increase our capacity even more,” says Griffith.

The demand for more firefighters is acing fire services across Ontario.

For the A.C.E.L, Griffith calls it critical.

“The volunteer fire service as a whole really has never been in more trouble than we are right now with a number of our members, some of them are north of 50 or 60 years old. They’re needing to retire, and we just don’t have the depth in our rosters to be able to handle that anymore.”

Anyone interested in joining the service can contact any one of the municipal town offices or the fire service at 807-271-0111 and leave a message.

Griffith says there is an application process and training that one also has to go through.