THUNDER BAY — With little resources to address fire-related emergencies, fire safety remains a significant concern in many First Nations in and outside Northwestern Ontario.
“I’ve been to over 25 communities in Northwestern Ontario. I’d say over 90 per cent of them don’t have a fire department and over 90 per cent of the homes don’t have a working smoke alarm,” said Shane Ferguson, president of the Staying Alive Fire Safety Program.
Ferguson held a fire safety presentation for northern communities at the First Nations Housing Conference on Tuesday.
“This is going to be an ongoing thing and the more information that can be given to the communities, it’ll help encourage them to actually go after getting properly trained firefighters and to have a fire department,” said Ferguson.
Communities without a fire department are basically all fly-in and use the ice roads, he said, some might have a fire truck, but they don’t have a place to house it or trained volunteer firefighters.
Poplar Hill First Nation is one of those communities. They do have a fire truck, but Band Councillor James Suggashie said they have no fire department.
He said training had been available in the past for the truck, but they ran out of funding.
The community has since had talks about getting it back.
"I think it’s important that we start training our people to get these resources that we need to be able to do what we can when there’s a house fire. Yeah, it’s much needed," said Suggashie.
The Poplar Hill Water Treatment Plant's water truck, which normally supplies water to homes, is also used to help fight fires in the community, Suggashie said.
When it's not available, he added residents are usually on their own.
“It’s always a big thing when we see a house burned down when you can’t do nothing," said Suggashie.
The community has also built a separate building for its fire truck, following a maintenance issue that left it out of commission.
“It froze up one year and it took the whole year to have it (fixed). We had to take it back to where we got it from, where we did everything. Everything was frozen up and now we have it back, so we’re all set. Yeah, we learned how to care for it now,” said Suggashie.
Ferguson said he has taught fire safety and firefighter training in the NAN communities for the last eight years.
He hopes to educate the population to get a working smoke alarm and to know what to do once the smoke alarm goes off and have a meeting place.
"I really work on it with the kids in school to make them understand why it’s important. When kids are scared, the first thing they want to do is hide. The idea is to get them not to hide, but to get outside,” he said.
To help teach fire safety, keep kids safe and teach them how to get out of fires safely, Ferguson also announced that he is also working with the Assembly of First Nations to make an Indigenous fire safety app that will go to 634 communities across Canada.
The app will resemble The Great Escape, a globally distributed game he and his friends have made and utilized for over 20 years.
“We’re going to do an Indigenous one where it’s Indigenous art, Indigenous characters. We’re going to have an elder as someone to give you advice and then we’re using seven sacred animals,” said Ferguson.
Suggashie added that the new fire safety app could make an impact in some way.
“We’re different up there in the north. We’re very different than the town, so I think we would look at that and come up with what would work for us. What would best work for the community,” said Suggashie.
