As part of the Canadian Province of Ontario's legislated municipal restructuring, the national capital of Ottawa merged with surrounding municipalities and townships on Jan. 1, 2001.

This amalgamation resulted in a new Ottawa Fire Services created from nine existing fire departments — the City of Ottawa; the surrounding municipalities of Nepean, Gloucester, Kanata and Cumberland; and Goulborn, West Carleton, Osgoode and Rideau townships — with about 950 career and 400 volunteer firefighters.

Three of those were career departments, two were composite or combination, and four were volunteer. Answering more than 35,000 fire calls in 2001, the Ottawa Fire Services maintain 42 stations and run 140 vehicles with a yearly budget of about $70 million CDN.

More than 19 months since the integration process began, Ottawa Fire Services Chief Rick Larabie says that it's going extremely well. A member of the former Gloucester Fire Department since 1974, he was its chief prior to the formation of the new department.

“We've had a lot of challenges,” Larabie says. “This is a huge geographic area that includes about 1,600 square miles. The nine former departments all had different service levels. There were different deployment models, standard operating procedures, services delivered, including water rescue and hazardous materials, and a range of equipment.”

Composite fire service

Ottawa is located on the Ottawa River about 90 miles west of Montreal and 200 miles northeast of Toronto. With a population of more than 810,000, it's the fourth-largest city in Canada. The city territory is extensive, running about 60 miles across from the east to west boundaries, with the area about 9% urban and 91% rural.

When the government-appointed transition board began the amalgamation process in 2000, it approved a service delivery framework of core fire services by combined career and volunteer firefighters. No firefighters were to be laid off.

Each of the nine former services had its history, culture and traditions. From the outset, the goal was to create a single, integrated composite fire service, but it presented challenges and opportunities not experienced elsewhere in Canada. In fact, no success models of this scale existed elsewhere, so a homegrown solution was required to fit Ottawa's situation.

While firefighters in the former Ottawa department normally wouldn't work with volunteers because adjacent municipalities also had full-time fire services, that wasn't the situation for two of the major cities. There, working alongside volunteers from neighboring municipalities was common practice, so a composite department wasn't really anything new for them.

There were varying levels of expertise in all of the departments, but not all of the specialized capabilities were with the urban departments. For example, the former West Carleton volunteer fire service had expertise in auto extrication and had won the North American championship competing against large departments in the United States. In addition, rural departments were extremely adept at delivering water to non-hydrant areas, an issue that urban centers don't usually need to overcome.

Over time, the volunteer firefighters in Ottawa's rural areas will have more intense training, tougher standards and better equipment in an attempt to make sure they're on par with the city's full-time firefighters. The city has committed $7.7 million over the next five years for increased training and emergency services equipment.

“If we're going to ask our firefighters to risk their lives, then we have to give them the equipment and the training that they need,” says Diane Deans, a city councilor and chair of the emergency and protective services committee.

When it comes to staffing, one of the more obvious challenges has been harmonizing the five collective agreements in place at the time of amalgamation. While firefighters working in the former municipalities of Kanata, Cumberland, Ottawa, Gloucester and Nepean were represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters, there were different compensation levels, rank structures, working conditions and benefit packages. The collective agreements also had different expiration dates; some were current, but others dated back to 1997.

“We had a lot of work to do in that area and we still do,” Larabie says, but he cites an excellent rapport with the union, and negotiations for a new collective agreement are well under way. “Both parties have been working very hard to come up with an agreement. We're not there yet, but we're hopeful that it's going to be done this year.”

Maintaining service levels

A report was submitted in May to the city council's emergency and protective services committee with 104 recommendations regarding management and organization, risk analysis, prevention, fire operations, special operations, and support services.

Relatively few opportunities were identified to save money with the amalgamation without reducing service levels. While initial savings could have been achieved with the reduction in the number of chiefs and deputies and the possible closure of fire stations, the fire service's growth demands and harmonization of collective agreements were projected to offset those initial savings.

All prior service levels have been maintained and even enhanced to a certain extent. Services that were unavailable in a municipality, such as hazmat response, were usually provided through mutual aid agreements or by direct payment to a large municipality. Now all services are available throughout the city.

“In a fire department it's all about limiting risk,” says Deans, suggesting that cities need to determine an acceptable level of risk. “The more money that you are prepared to spend, the less risk you will have in the community. It's all balance between money and risk.”

Deans says erasing the boundaries between former municipalities allowed Ottawa to maintain and improve service levels by relocating pump and aerial trucks in some areas, even in the City of Ottawa, that were poorly served. For example, in one particular outlying area a new fire station had been recommended two years ago, but it was never built because of the pending amalgamation. Response times in parts of that municipality were at 25 minutes, but they're now much better because the area is serviced by a closer station that's located in one of the former municipalities.

Other areas had station location problems following the amalgamation, prompting recommendations for the closure of two fire stations, changes to four stations and the opening of a new station. The city encourages an open public consultation process and reaction has been predictable.

“One thing I've learned in my eight years of local government is that it is always easier to open things than it is to close them, even if closing them is the right thing to do, whether it's a library, school, community center or a fire station,” says Deans. “People come to expect those things in their community, and they will fight to the bitter end to keep them there.”

The committee has recommended a compromise whereby service levels will be reduced but the stations will remain. Some equipment will be redeployed, including to stations that service the city's identified growth areas.

Once the final contingent of stations is confirmed, a new numbering system will be developed to eliminate confusing situations, delays in response times and threats to public safety that existing duplicate station numbers currently pose. Fire apparatus also will be renumbered.

Equipment familiarization

Although differences in equipment required an immediate familiarization training program, a single radio system, common air pack and new computer-aided dispatch system were the critical infrastructure components that had to be addressed in the short term to create a seamless and unified delivery of fire services and ensure safe working conditions for the firefighters.

From the outset, it was a priority for firefighters from stations close to another former municipality's fire station to complete cross-border training to familiarize themselves with each other's equipment.

There was some variation with the type and brands of equipment, such as heavy hydraulics that operated differently or had a variety of connections. The placement of equipment in the trucks varied in each former department, and air packs weren't standard, with each brand using different switches in various locations. Even the hose sizes were different.

The standardization of equipment is an issue that won't be resolved soon, but it hasn't become an obstacle to amalgamation. It's just something that needs to be contended with as firefighters get to know equipment they may not have used before.

“While in a sense it's a budget issue, it just wouldn't make sense to replace equipment just so we'd all have the same thing when what we have functions perfectly well,” Larabie says. “It would be irresponsible to take good equipment and dispose of it for something else.”

Standardization issues

There were, however, three items that needed to be addressed to ensure better interoperability: SCBA, the radio system and dispatch.

1. Standardized SCBA

   Mismatched breathing apparatus was a safety issue that needed to be resolved quickly. Specifications were developed for a single air pack to be used throughout the department.

   “All of the manufacturers comply with the specifications, but we took the project a little farther,” says Larabie. “We did some specific testing, and we included a lot of the firefighters in the testing.”

   About 700 career and volunteer firefighters from all ranks and experience levels participated in the evaluations. Tests were developed to assess cold weather, high heat and humidity, fire-ground evolutions, and underwater operation as well as technical evaluations and user preferences.

   The equipment was used in live fire situations at the department's burn house to further evaluate user preferences. The air pack also was placed in service in both urban and rural stations last winter for additional feedback and experience.

2. Single radio system

   Ottawa now uses 22 different radio systems for its firefighters, public works employees, bylaw officers and other city staff, a carryover from the former municipalities. It has been one of the major barriers to the amalgamation process and an obstacle to merging operations. A single radio system must also be in operation before a new CAD system can be implemented.

   To address the concerns of the fire service regarding in-building coverage, an engineering consulting firm was retained to examine the quality of voice transmissions from remote locations inside selected buildings, particularly those having historically difficult communications areas such as underground parking garages and large, multi-story office buildings and shopping centers.

   The study recommended some remedial measures to overcome the communications issues, including high-gain antennae for portable radios, on-frequency repeaters, bi-directional amplifiers, distributed antennae, portable repeaters and vehicular repeaters installed on pump trucks.

   Based on the results of the in-building coverage testing, research and analysis, an existing 800MHZ trunked radio system used in some departments of the former City of Ottawa meets the communication needs of the Ottawa Fire Services. The anticipated cost to implement a single radio system by the end of this year is about $9 million.

3. Centralized dispatch

   A harmonized fire dispatch operations center also is a major priority and will be in place by the end of 2002. At the outset of the amalgamation there were eight dispatch centers in operation, but some of the smaller ones were gradually collapsed and the number soon will be down to five. Further consolidation will take place once the radio standardization and CAD systems projects are completed. The dispatch project is a key enabler to the full integration of the fire services.

“When those projects are completed, we can then move quickly to collapse the other four dispatch centers into one,” says Larabie. “The former Ottawa dispatch center is large enough to accommodate all of the other centers.”

The CAD system and radio standardization have been the most challenging communications issues, according to Larabie, coupled with a federal government request for the fire service to move to another bandwidth within a few years. “We're moving ahead now to try and resolve both of those issues.”

Year of accomplishments

By the end of 2001, the new Ottawa Fire Services had realized a number of significant achievements in its first year of operation.

It reduced one communications dispatch center and developed a plan to implement the new CAD program that will eventually centralize dispatching into one center. It also developed a three-year fleet acquisition plan that will result in 28 replacement vehicles by the end of this year, and it identified the requirements and specifications to standardize SCBA.

These projects will create efficiencies and enhance flexibility in the deployment of the personnel, resulting in improved service to the public. Separate divisions also tackle problems unique to urban and rural areas and special ops.

The Urban Operations Division responds to requests for emergency services in the urban area of the city including: fire suppression; medical calls; water rescue; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats; and technical rescue.

The Special Operations Division has the expertise and equipment to deal with situations such as CBRN responses, water and ice rescue, high angle and confined-space rescue, trench and collapse rescue, and vehicle and machinery extrications.

To better respond to the 3,000 requests for service, the Rural Operations Division established a common organizational structure and deployment plan for the 400 volunteer firefighters deployed from 16 rural stations. One of its more effective deployment features is the “flexible assignment” that lets the volunteer firefighters support a different station while at work than when at home, so they can maintain their skill levels and provide consistent response and public safety at emergency calls.

According to Larabie, the success to-date is attributable to the project management process that was implemented. Deputy chiefs are responsible for the projects in their areas of expertise, while team leaders gather information and deliver it to a project coordinator, whose sole job is to keep the pressure on people to get their input on time. “We have strict timelines,” says Larabie. “Everybody knows what they have to do and when to get it done.”

Clearly, the service delivery model of fire services in Ottawa will evolve and will need to be fine-tuned over time as circumstances and experiences dictate. Merging urban and rural fire departments into an efficient and effective composite fire service takes time, but so far Ottawa's experience has been positive.

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Laird Greenshields is a Westmount, Quebec-based freelancer.