Camilla Faragalli, reporter

Funded by the Local Journalism Initiative

École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge (ESSC) students demonstrated a remarkable level of enthusiasm throughout their hour-long Firefighter 1 training last week.
The class of 17, made up of six girls and 11 boys, spent Thursday morning reviewing various skills needed to work in a local fire department.
They practiced technique and speed for dressing in personal protective equipment (PPE), “laying the bed” of fire hoses on the top of a simulated firetruck in the gymnasium and rolling the hoses for transport, and reviewed the reading that had been assigned earlier in the week, which focused on communication practices and radio codes within a fire department.
“When I heard about it [the program] I was one of the first ones to put my name down,” said Jean-Michel Landry, one of the students currently enrolled in the program.
“It’s something that’s always interested me, so I take it seriously,” he said.
The training program is being offered as an elective course, to be taken over the span of two academic years.
Martin Bertrand is the primary instructor for the course, and also the captain of the Calumet Island Fire Department.
He said the high school training opportunity is “a brand new program from a brand new initiative from the province,” made possible in the Pontiac by a collaboration between the MRC Pontiac, local fire departments and the enthusiasm of ESSC students.
“The ones that actually made this a reality, the true stars are the kids,” Bertrand said.
A combination of both theoretical learning and hands-on practice, the Firefighter 1 training covers the essentials of firefighting and allows passing students to work with any fire department in the province in municipalities with fewer than 5,000 people.
“This is not an in-house program,” said Bertrand, who has worked as a firefighter for 17 years. “This is legit, this is real stuff.”

How it started
Julien Gagnon, public safety coordinator for MRC Pontiac and a firefighter of 10 years in the Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department, said that the “resounding success” of two pilot projects launched by the L’École national des pompiers du Québec just prior to the pandemic had been all the encouragement the MRC needed to launch the ESSC program.
“We had thought about it for a couple of years. So when it was made available, we jumped on the opportunity,” Gagnon said.
Bertrand, who is also a gym teacher and outdoor education teacher at the high school, said he was impressed by the dedication he’s seen from his students since they registered for the program, adding that in the lead-up to its launch this fall, he would be visited almost daily by students eager to get started.
“These kids are super passionate, super committed, and they’ve actually promised that they’re going to follow through,” he said.
Mégane Fortin, another student enrolled in the course, said her father and brother are both firefighters and that it has “always been something she has wanted to do?”
“I was so happy it was something I could do here [at ESSC],” she said.
Malaika Segobaetso is another of the students enrolled in the program.
“I love learning new things, being active,” she said. “In two years I’ll be able to help my community in Shawville. I’ll be able to participate in something that most of the time mostly adults do, but I’ll still be a kid doing that, which is pretty cool,” Segobaetso said.
“I’m determined to keep doing it, to be able to help, because we are short people.”

Filling a void
According to a 2018 study from the MRC Pontiac, there were 242 firefighters in the region that year. Gagnon said last year that number fell to 196.
“We lost about 50 firefighters, which is about 20 per cent of our workforce in five years, and we’re not replacing them at the rate that we’re losing them,” he said, adding the reason for this is two-fold.
“The government has imposed many rules and regulations as far as firefighter safety goes. So there’s a lot of training involved when somebody joins a fire department, especially at a local level.”
He added that a Firefighter 1 course is 250 hours of training, which many people feel they cannot accomplish while simultaneously working another job.
Gagnon said that, in addition, since the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s found it harder to get people to commit to helping their community.
“A lot of the time, as much as we try to recruit and entice people to come and join, a lot of people decline either to spend more time with their families, or want their personal time,” he said.
“Of course, firefighting is never scheduled, so it’s hard if they don’t want to commit.”
Both Gagnon and Bertrand cited the shortage of firefighters in the Pontiac as the main reason they were keen to get the high school firefighter training going at ESSC.
“Obviously, [there is] a need in our municipalities,” Bertrand said.
“We know most of them [students] are going to go to school outside of the region. We want them to come back and raise their families here, and join the fire departments as well.”
The hope of the MRC and local fire departments is that completing the Firefighter 1 certification while still in high school will make it substantially easier for young people to join local departments once they have graduated.
“It gets the ball rolling,” Gagnon said, adding that if students wish to pursue career-fighting in larger municipalities, which require additional certifications, having the Firefighter 1 portion already completed would work to their advantage.
“It will open more doors and that’s the benefit of the course for them,” he said.

‘If it’s too dangerous, we don’t do it’
While students seem incredibly enthusiastic about the training, both Gagnon and Bertrand cited safety as a concern regularly flagged by parents.
“We are doing this because safety is our number one concern,” Bertrand said. “We’re doing this the correct way, the proper way with the proper training, so that we can mitigate risks.”
He acknowledged that there is risk inherent to firefighting, but emphasized that the students would be kept safe.
“We will never put somebody in a position where it would be dangerous for them to do what they have to do,” he said.
Gagnon explained that a
main principle of firefighting had been reinforced with the ESSC students since day one:
“You protect yourself before the person you’re trying to save.”
“If it’s too dangerous, we don’t do it,” he added, “And I think the kids have understood.”

Side effects may include: confidence
Bertrand said that while he has often witnessed a defeatist attitude in the students he teaches, saying things like, “I’m from the Pontiac, I’m at a disadvantage, or I can’t do this,” he believes this program demonstrates the opposite is true.
“Programs like this, you can’t do anywhere else,” Bertrand said. “I think we’re showing these young students that the sky’s the limit if you work hard.”
Several students said their favourite part of the program was its practical, hands-on nature, which does not exist in many of their other classes.
“We’ve had comments that they [ESSC staff] think it’ll help some students stay in school,” Gagnon said, adding that he suspects the firefighting course might offer more incentive for less academically inclined students to attend their classes.
Bertrand said that since the start of the program, he has seen some of the students’ confidence “skyrocket through the roof.”
“I’m seeing a lot of beautiful positive transformations happening already, and we’re just beginning. [These students] can achieve almost anything, especially here in the Pontiac.”
Talira Savard is another student enrolled in the program.
“I was always interested in paramedics, but seeing a new point of view on things and doing things to save people’s lives, and risking your own life to help other people is something quite incredible,” she said.
“I never thought that I was going to be doing this while I’m in high school.”
Savard said that before the start of the program, she believed the class would be something she did for fun with her friends.
“But now, I’m like, ‘maybe this could be my future’.”