Fire services in York Region

History

Fire departments in York Region date back to the 19th Century, and all were volunteer units. Later in the 20th Century full-time fire departments were created. Some departments in the region still retain volunteer units. East Gwillimbury Fire was the last all-volunteer service in the region until 2008, when the first crew of career firefighters was hired. East Gwillimbury, Georgina and Vaughan still have some volunteer stations leaving Township of King as the only all volunteer department, with a staff of 105 volunteers servicing King City, Nobelton and Schomberg.

Small local departments slowly merged to form large departments in the 1960s and 1970s. În the late 1990s, York Region was planning to merge all of York's fire services into one large unit. Resistance from firefighters and others prevented the plan from being implemented.

The use of "Fire Department" gave way to "Fire and Emergency" as the firefighter's roles expanded in the 1990s.

Command

Each department has their own Chief and senior officers (Deputy Chiefs). The command structure is for the most part similar in the fire services across the region:

Markham

King

Central York

East Gwillimbury

Georgina

Richmond Hill

Vaughan

Whitchurch-Stouffville

Rank

Georgina

Town of Georgina Fire and Rescue provides fire fighting services to the communities of Keswick, Ontario, Sutton, Ontario and Pefferlaw, Ontario. The department deals mainly with rural fire situations (residential, commercial and agriculture fires), but it has marine and hazmat capabilities. Georgina Fire and Rescue has a mix of full-time and volunteer staff with total strength of 90 personnel. A fleet of 12 apparatus are spread across 3 stations. Georgina Fire and Rescue was created from the merger of several local fire departments including Keswick Fire Department and Georgina Fire Department.

The service is supported by York Regional Police in marine firefighting on Lake Simcoe by use of MU2 Naawig, a patrol boat equipped with a water nozzle.

East Gwillimbury

East Gwillimbury Emergency Services Department serves the communities of Holland Landing, Ontario, Mount Albert, Ontario and Queensville, Ontario. The fire service operates over an area of 238 square kilometres or 91.89 square miles (238.0 km²). The department has a full-time fire chief, fire prevention officer and training officer. In addition six full-time firefighters are on duty in two shifts during daytime hours in the Queensville firehall. All other firefighters are volunteers and each station has a staff of 27 and all must be in residence of the Town of East Gwillimbury. The fire service is capable of handling a variety of situations, but it is mostly a rural fire unit. This fire department responds to approximately 1000 emergency calls each year. Expected growth to East Gwillimbury will result in massive changes to the town's population and the change from a part-time paid on-call fire department to full-time staffed 24 hours in the near future. The service began as independent fire stations in 1970 and unified after 1997.

King Township

King Township Fire & Emergency Services serves the communities of King City, Ontario, Schomberg, Ontario and Nobleton, Ontario. It serves an area of 3000 square kilometres and a population of almost 20,000 residents. The towns fire service is composed of full-time and volunteer fire fighters or fire suppression officers.

Central York Fire Services

Central York Fire Services provides fire services to the Town of Newmarket and Aurora. It has 96 firefighters, 24 Captains and 4 Platoon Chiefs on staff at four fire stations. The fire service was created from the merger of the former Town of Newmarket Fire Department and Town of Aurora Fire Department in 2002. The fire services has 15 vehicles of which 12 are fire fighting ones.

Whitchurch–Stouffville

Whitchurch-Stouffville Fire Department provides fire fighting services to Whitchurch–Stouffville and Stouffville, Ontario. The services protects 38,000 residents with 24 full-time fire suppression staff, 2 full-time fire prevention Officers, training officer and a full-time administrative assistant. There are also 50 trained volunteer firefighters. The fire service has 10 vehicles in their fleet.

Vaughan

Vaughan Fire and Rescue provides fire and emergency needs to the communities in the City of Vaughan (Maple, Ontario, Kleinburg, Ontario, Concord, Ontario, Thornhill, Ontario west of Yonge Street and Woodbridge, Ontario). There are over 250 firefighters on staff with a mix of full-time and volunteers. The fire services deals with rural scenarios in the north and urban in the south part of the city.

Richmond Hill

Richmond Hill Fire & Emergency Services provides fire services to the Town of Richmond Hill. It has 140 fire fighters on staff at 6 fire stations. Richmond Hill also offers specialized technical rescue services including water and ice rescue, technical rope rescue, confined space rescue, trench rescue and hazardous materials response. Richmond Hill provides dispatch services to Georgina, East Gwillimbury, Central York, Whitchurch/Stouffville and Richmond Hill.

Markham

Markham Fire has 200 firefighters on staff is responsible for fire support for the City of Markham, as well as Toronto/Buttonville Municipal Airport. The newest station is 9-9, which opened in February 2012. The service began as the Markham Village Fire Department (c. 1870s) and acquired Unionville Fire Department in 1964. The Markham Fire Department was created in 1970 and renamed with the current name in 2000. Volunteer fire members were disbanded in 1996.

Markham Fire and Emergency Services provides fire protection to the communities in the City of Markham:

*NOTE*

Even though Bradford West Gwillimbury is NOT part of York Region, it uses the same numbering system for its apparatus (I.E.: Station 1 is numbered as 10-1)

Apparatus

York Region's fire apparatus use fire engine red as the base colour. Trim varies from yellow, white and blue.

Markham and Vaughan were one of a number of municipalities to have formerly used a yellow paint scheme.

APPARATUS DESIGNATIONS - The numbering works like this:

The apparatus numbers are pronounced by saying each digit individually. For example, 729 would be pronounced Seven-Two-Nine, NOT Seven Twenty Nine, and 849 would be pronounced Eight-Four-Nine, NOT Eight Forty Nine, and so on.

For units with 4 digits, such as Fire Prevention, Training, and spare apparatus, the last 3 digits are pronounced individually from the first digit. For example, 4401 would be pronounced Four-Four-Zero-One, NOT Forty-Four-O-One.

GEORGINA FIRE DEPARTMENT

STATION 1-4 - 165 The Queensway South (Keswick) Full-Time & Volunteer

STATION 1-6 - 37 Snooks Road (Sutton) Full-Time and Volunteer

STATION 1-8 270 Pefferlaw Road (Pefferlaw) Volunteer Staffed

EAST GWILLIMBURY FIRE DEPARTMENT

STATION 2-4 (Holland Landing - Volunteer)

STATION 2-6 (Mount Albert - Volunteer)

STATION 2-8 (Queensville - Full-Time (Mon-Fri, Days) and Volunteer Staff)

KING TOWNSHIP FIRE & EMERGENCY SERVICES

STATION 3-4 - 2045 King Road, King City (HQ)

STATION 3-6 - 91 Proctor Rd, Schomberg

STATION 3-8 - 5926 King Road, Nobleton

CENTRAL YORK FIRE SERVICES

STATION 4-1 - 984 Gorham St, Newmarket (HQ)

STATION 4-2 - 125 McCaffrey Rd, Newmarket

STATION 4-3 - 220 Edward St, Aurora

STATION 4-4 - 1344 Wellington St E, Aurora

WHITCHURCH-STOUFFVILLE

STATION 5-1 - 100 Weldon Road, Stouffville (HQ)

STATION 5-2 - 15400 Hwy. 48, Ballantrae

VAUGHAN FIRE & RESCUE SERVICE

STATION 7-1 - 835 Clark Ave (Thornhill)

STATION 7-2 - 9290 Keele St (Maple)

STATION 7-3 - 325 Woodbridge Ave (Woodbridge)

STATION 7-5 - 2 Fieldstone Ave (Woodbridge)

STATION 7-6 - 120 McLeary Ct (Concord)

STATION 7-7 - 40 Eagleview Heights (Vellore)

STATION 7-8 - Racco Pkwy (Concord)

STATION 7-9 - 9601 Islington Ave (Kleinburg)

STATION 7-10 - 10800 Dufferin St (Maple)

Spare

Fire Prevention

RICHMOND HILL FIRE & EMERGENCY SERVICES

STATION 8-1 - 191 Major Mackenzie Drive West (HQ)

STATION 8-2 - 13067 Yonge Street - Oak Ridges

STATION 8-3 - 1371 16th Avenue

STATION 8-4 - 1365 Elgin Mills Road East

STATION 8-5 - 150 High Tech Road

STATION 8-6 - 101 Gamble Road

MARKHAM FIRE & EMERGENCY SERVICES

STATION 9-1 - 7801 Bayview Avenue, Thornhill

STATION 9-2 - 10 Riviera Drive, Markham

STATION 9-3 - 2930 Major MacKenzie Dr.

STATION 9-4 - 7300 Birchmount Road, Milliken

STATION 9-5 (HQ) 316 Main Street Unionville

STATION 9-6 - 5567 Fourteenth Avenue, Markham

STATION 9-7 - 209 Main Street Markham

STATION 9-8 - 650 Bur Oak Avenue

STATION 9-9 - 3255 Bur Oak Avenue