Rotarian Bill Sibeon introduced our first speaker, Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Chief Gary Monoghan. Bill, a former fireman for many years identified the many accomplishments of Gary's career to date and then added a personal touch by indicating growing up his children and Gary's family were very close and played/socialized together often.
Gary went on to give us some background on the overall fire preparedness in our region. 5 Fire Stations, 90 volunteers, and less than 10 full time staff. He indicated if we go to a full time fire crew our overall costs would grow from $400K to many millions. He singled out the Port Sydney station as it doubles as a Regional Training Centre, with 11 acres and the ability to have trainees fight actual fires, not something available at every training site. It has also become a revenue centre as the Ontario Fire Marshall pays for course attendees. One of the most loved employees is Ember the Trauma Support Dog that is being trained to play an important role in the full circle of service the department provides.
Gary outlined the challenges of being a combined Chief to the Huntsville and Lake of Bays area. Two councils, two CAO's, two budgets and the need for him to represent the Department at many different locations. He doesn't have a fixed office, moving around to different stations and attending meetings. Like many leaders he no longer works in the trenches and was honest to say techniques and apparatus has changed so much he might be challenged to do so.
Gary talked about the risk to volunteers safety - the number one affliction is cancer. Recent training and procedures have taken into account decontamination techniques from many of the chemicals encountered by the volunteer fighters as they do their job.
One of the main take aways from his talk was the numbers and breakdown of calls. 71 Fire Calls last year but 146 False Alarms. 76 Hydro Wire calls, 97 Public Hazard calls and 179 Medical, CPR, Defib calls. The issue is that for every one of these calls the volunteers are asked to respond. Imagine the frustration of leaving your job, rushing to the station and the accident site and finding it was a false alarm. This is very hard on volunteers.
In response to a question Gary talked about the dangers of lithium batteries. More and more incidents are being caused by these types of charges overheating and causing combustion. From car batteries to cell phone batteries this will be a growing concern because putting this type of fire out is very difficult.
Rotarian Jennifer Simpson then had the pleasure of introducing Steve Rutledge from the Whitby Sunrisers Club. Steve has been a regular visitor to our club to bring updates about his 'Adopt A Village In Laos' charity. This is only one of the many charitable projects this tireless Rotarian is and has been involved in. Basically every year Steve travels to inland Laos for a number of months and works with locals, fellow Rotarians and the government to bring water to local villages. Over the years they have been able to bring clean water supply to 45 villages serving a population of approx 45,00 villagers. Last year they did 4 water projects and installed 800 water filters in homes. These filters are very simplistic, effectively a clay pot liner sprayed with silver nitrate that acts as a strainer to remove contaminents from the water.
Laos has the unfortunate reputation as being the 'most bombed country in the world' following the Vietnam War. The impact on the countries citizens has been profound and physical and mental health issues abound. The importance of clean water to avoid illness cannot be overstated.
Following the talk Jennifer presented a cheque for $1,000 to assist Steve to continue to do his good works. If you wish to sponsor a water filter for $125 Canadian go onto his web site https://aavil.org/
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