The BC General Employees Union (BCGEU) says the BC Wildfire Service should be remade into a year-round, professionalized service like other fire departments.
“The problem is the seasonal nature of how it is treated,” BCGEU Treasurer Paul Finch, told NL News.
“With these elongated fire seasons you really need a core of dedicated professionals that are employed across the year because in the off-season you’re just going to be doing prep and training and recruitment for the next season.”
Finch says because of low pay and no job security among other things, every year the service struggles to retain highly trained professionals.
“We strongly believe that we need to basically reorganize the service to professionalize it, to build it around a year-round professional core, instead of built around an auxiliary core,” he added. “That’s not to say that you don’t bring in auxiliary resources when you need them, but we think there needs to be a fundamental shift there.”
Speaking on the NL Noon Report, Finch says many wildfire personnel end up leaving the service to do the very same job in the private sector. He says better pay and benefits including pensions should be made available like they are with municipal and city fire departments.
“We need to make sure that there’s not only seasoned professionals that are being compensated appropriately, that you know are being kept on board year after year and that we’re developing that,” he noted.
“The best way to do that is to realign the service over a professional core.”