Ontario closing fire college in Gravenhurst to meet growing need for training

Fire college didn't meet growing needs: OFM The fire college in Gravenhurst is closing to meet the growing need for training. Roger Klein reports.

Wasaga Beach, Ont. — The Ontario Fire College in Gravenhurst will officially close its doors on March 31 after more than 70 years.

The closure was confirmed on Wednesday by the mayor of Gravenhurst and the solicitor general. Ontario Fire Marshal Jon Pegg said the college wasn't meeting the growing need for training across the province.

"When you look at the numbers - and we are not meeting the need of 30,000 firefighters - it became clear we need to do something, and we need to get more localized training," Pegg said.

Firefighters rely on their training to do the job and return home safely, and the Gravenhurst fire college had provided much of that training since 1949.

Wasaga Beach Fire Chief Mike McWilliam said he was upset to learn of its closure. "You get sent up there on your recruit training. You meet a lot of people in the fire service and meet new friends, and it's more than just the training. It's the culture."

The shift to localized training is already underway in many fire services, except for live-fire drills, which were done at the college. In the future, that training will happen online and at regional training centres. There will also be two mobile units.

"They will have more access time to live-fire training that they currently do with the campus in Gravenhurst. So we will see an improved amount of firefighters live-fire training," Pegg said.

Fire chiefs anticipate the cost of that training to increase significantly for municipalities but said it would get done.

"We will bond together, share facilities, share resources. We will continue to train our firefighters and serving the public as well as we always have," McWilliam said.

The Gravenhurst college hasn't had any training since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.