Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 22/02) - It's 10 a.m. and a handful of firefighters are sitting around the firehall lunch room watching RealTV.

On the screen, a man survives a 16-storey tumble from a smoking high rise in Santiago, Chile.

The firefighters joke that he should buy a lottery ticket while his luck is running strong.

This is the waiting game, as the men relax and banter until the next call comes in. But according to an operational review of the department, local firefighters aren't waiting much.

In fact, the report and fire Chief Mick Beauchamp say, morale is suffering at the firehall because firefighters are working too much overtime -- and the city should immediately hire four more firefighters to compensate.

According to the report, the hall is so short-staffed that it was left without enough personnel to respond to an emergency call without backup 1,400 times last year.

Although the more help -- volunteers and off-duty fire-fighters -- was only called in 160 times last year, the statistics are pointing to a need for change.

Staffing levels at the hall are four people per shift, but factor in sick days and vacation time and the department counts on about three people, which is the minimum staffing level.

The staffing battleground has shifted to city hall, where the fire department has pleaded for four more staff and city administration have recommended waiting another year to make the hires.

The price tag for the extra men is about $250,000, but Beauchamp says the bigger staff will save about $60,000 in overtime payments. And he says he expects fewer off-duty staff would need to be called in.

Failure is 'imminent'

The firefighters' union is joining the fray, telling councillors that failure of the call-out system is "imminent."

"Our staff are being subjected to off-duty call-outs an average of four times per week," said union president Mike Dunsmore. "These call-outs have a significant impact on our staff members. This impact has no consideration for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, personal and family time."

Dunsmore faces opposition from at least one corner. Coun. Alan Woytuik thinks the city should look into contracting out transfers to medevacs to companies like Medflight, which already cares for patients in the air.

"Why not extend the contract to provide the service right to the hospital?" he said.

Chief Beauchamp disagrees.

"I see no value in it," he said. "If you were to take the medevac services away from us then basically you lose $400,000 worth of revenue. The staffing level won't change, so that means taxpayers are going to have to find $400,000 to supplement the revenue we lost. That makes no sense to me."

A number of councillors support putting money toward the extra staff -- and doing it quickly.

"The problem and the solution seem obvious, so I don't have any problem trying to find a way to do it this time around," said Coun. Ben McDonald.

The decision on the four extra personnel will take place during budget talks, which occur over the next few weeks.

The city is holding a special committee meeting to discuss the operational review next Tuesday at noon.