Denbigh Fire Station May Close Says Fire Chief

Although the Jan. 31 special meeting of Addington Highlands Council was billed as a “General Discussion on Strategic Priorities,” nobody expected the bombshell that Fire Chief/Community Emergency Management Coordinator Casey Cuddy dropped when the discussion turned to Emergency Services, Planning and Management.

Following a presentation from three OPP officers, a discussion on Health Services and Doctor Recruitment and Affordable Housing, Cuddy laid out the situation regarding the Denbigh Fire Department.

“You want me to be a doomsday per - son tonight?” Cuddy said. “With mandatory certification for firefighters, I don’t know that you’re going to have a fire department up there in two years time.

“Unless we find some people that want to take all of the courses.”

Under Ontario Regulation 343/22 made under the Fire Protection and Prevention Act, all firefighters must be certified by July 1, 2026.

“Unfortunately, you don’t have the population to draw from in the north end of the Township,” Cuddy said. “A lot of the able-bodied people in the area work out of the Township and just don’t have the time it takes to take all of these courses they’re going to have to take to become certified.”

“We can’t be alone in this,” said Dep. Reeve Tony Fritsch. “There’s a lot more to rural Ontario than Ward 1.”

Cuddy said he’s asked the Fire Marshall’s office if there are options here such as having some members of the department available only for medical calls (which have more than doubled in the last two years) but he’s not getting any answers.

“You must have a fire prevention program but not a fire suppression program,” he said. “To have a department that can attack fires, you have to have

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By Craig Bakay

10 certified firefighters, and that’s if you have hydrants — which we don’t, so you also have to have people trained to operate tankers.”

He said the current situation can’t wait until the last minute because certification can take up to six months.

“If we can’t be a fire department, can we be a first response department?” he said. “I know other chiefs have talked about closing down departments.”

If the Denbigh department were to close, calls would have to be handled from the Northbrook department.

“The worst situation with that is that