It’s recruitment time once again at the 150 Mile House Volunteer Fire Department.
Fire Chief Paul McCarthy said anyone interested in becoming an active firefighter must be 19 years of age and he’s hoping that in the coming years they’ll be able to have their junior program come back.
Once a person has been accepted McCarthy added there is a long probation period to make sure that it’s a right fit for the fire department and for the individual who signed up and he explained what they’re training would involve.
“We train for medical calls so you get your first responder EMR training. We do a fire fighting training to the National Fire Fighting Protection Agency’s 1001 Standard and we offer all that training in-house, we also do a weekly fire practice that’s about 2 hours a night once a week.”
He noted that once an applicant passes their training period they can move on from responding to fires in rural communities to big city Fire Departments.
“We’ve actually seen firefighters leave 150 Mile and go on to work in other Fire Departments. We’ve had firefighters actually turn this into a career where they’ve gone to work for BC Ambulance or in the industrial fire and safety world so there are a lot of opportunities. This volunteer position can open a lot of doors for people.”
McCarthy says the 150 Mile House Volunteer Fire Department will be holding an open house this evening (November 9th) at 7 for those interested in a career in fire fighting.