Country Canada City Hamilton Battalions 2 | Province Ontario Established (amalgamation) Stations 26 | |
The Hamilton Fire Department is a department of the City of Hamilton, that provides fire protection, fire prevention, technical rescue, primary CBRNe response, and HazMat response, to the residents of Hamilton, Ontario.
History
The fire department in Hamilton dates back to 1879, when Alexander Aitchison was appointed Fire Chief of the city. Aitchison was responsible for radically reforming the department, and during his tenure, the department was changed into an entirely paid one, as well as introducing the first swinging harness and sliding pole in Canada.
Starting in 1990, Hamilton area firefighters have been instructed on how to operate heart defibrillators, as it often takes less time for firefighters to reach the victim compared to ambulance paramedics. A study found that the policy change decreased the amount of time between a 911 call and when the patient received defibrillation by almost 30 percent. The department faced one of its worst crises in the July 1997 Plastimet fire, which began in a warehouse containing polyvinyl chloride plastics. Firefighters battled the conflagration for four days, and the plume of toxins and smoke released by the burning plastics may have caused the deaths of several Hamilton firefighters in the years after the fire.
In 2001, Hamilton amalgamated with the other municipalities of Hamilton-Wentworth Region to create an expanded City of Hamilton. As a result, the Hamilton Fire Department, which served the original city, was merged with the fire departments of Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek. The department went from 12 stations to 26, and became a composite department with both full-time and paid-on-call firefighters.
In 2010, the department shifted to a 24-shift schedule, switching from the previous schedule of four 10-hour days, followed by four 14-hour nights.
In 2011, the department hired Rob Simonds as its new chief, replacing the retiring Jim Kay.
The department made headlines in February 2015 when an acting captain was reinstated after being fired for using a racial slur to describe one of his colleagues. The captain had called a fellow firefighter a "monkey" in the zoo after a fistfight between the two. The incident led to calls for greater diversity in the department.