“For every area of our province, that’s going to be a different answer,” said the fire chief and president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Fire Services on Friday.
The association is holding its annual convention at the Corner Brook Civic Centre this weekend.
See related: Supporting family members of firefighters a goal for provincial association
Antle said in bigger centres like Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor, Clarenville and Conception Bay South, the face of the fire service in 10 years is going to be different than departments on the Northern Peninsula or Burin Peninsula.
Part of what those departments will look like could be impacted by the idea of regionalization.
“In some cases regionalization is the best path forward,” he said. “However, it’s not going to work for everybody.”
There are some situations where an outsider might think regionalization is the best answer, he said.
“But unless you’re in that system and you know the complexities that they’re dealing with, if you knew all those answers you’d probably say regionalization can’t work here, so we have to take a different approach.
“But if we say regionalization is the answer then the departments that where regionalization wouldn’t be a good fit, we’re going to leave them behind and we don’t want that to happen.”
Antle said it has to be looked at from different angles.
“If we can’t regionalize, how do we tackle the issues that regionalization is going to take care of in areas where they can regionalize?”
That he said is the big one.
When it comes to the needs of fire departments, Antle said equipment is not the biggest problem, “it’s people.”
There are so many young people leaving the province and the ones that remain face different demands from the workplace and families than when Antle started out almost 23 years ago. Today he’s like a lot of them and is attached to work 24-7.
But for him it’s about serving his community.
“I think our best path forward is to talk about the good things,” Antle said about attracting more people to the service.
That includes the benefits of having a fire department and the rewards that come with the job, of which Atnle says there are many.
“Knowing that when somebody was at their worst time, I was able to be part of a team that made it a little bit better for them.”
Twitter: @WS_DianeCrocker
