Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Providence (Aug 31/01) - A warehouse fire in Fort Providence last week illustrated how critical the shortage of volunteer firefighters has become here.

Only two trained volunteer firefighters showed up at the scene when the emergency call came in the early hours of Saturday morning.

"We're very lucky that it wasn't residential (fire) with occupants," firefighter Raymond Bonnetrouge said.

Fellow firefighter Kelvin McLeod added, "If that had been a house fire, the house would have been toast by the time we got there."

The Drum has learned that Fort Providence has only six trained volunteer firefighters in total, most of them hamlet staff. Fire meetings, normally held weekly or every second week, haven't taken place in several months. Bonnetrouge had been the fire chief until March, when he resigned. Noel Bonnetrouge succeeded him, but he's now attending college in Fort Smith, meaning there's no currently no fire chief.

Over the course of the past year, volunteer firefighters have left the community for various reasons, but nobody has stepped in to take their place. In his eight years on department, McLeod said he has never seen such a dearth of volunteers. Fortunately, prior to Saturday's fire, there hadn't been a serious blaze in the community since February.

Bonnetrouge and McLeod posted notices in the community earlier this week in hopes of recruiting more volunteers. McLeod suggested that an honorarium system may be a necessary incentive. When asked about the predicament, the hamlet's current mayor, Louie Constant, said he was unaware, but promised he would look into it.

Former mayor Sam Gargan, who left office in late June after serving six months of his term, also pleaded ignorance. Jim Thom, who preceded Gargan as mayor, said he was unaware as well, but suggested that something must be done immediately.

"We need more encouragement and to do a big drive on it. We have to rejuvenate it," Thom said of the dwindling number of volunteers. He added that an honorarium should be seriously considered too.

Kellie Mitchell, assistant fire marshal, said a lack of volunteers is a common problem in small towns.

"Most of our volunteers in these smaller communities are wearing five different hats," she said. "And it just seems that when they haven't had a fire for a while, nobody wants to come and train on a regular basis."

Mitchell is examining the possibility of tying together training for search and rescue, emergency measures and firefighting.

"If we change our training that way it might bring some new people out," she suggested.