SAANICH, BC – The Saanich Fire Department has updated its mutual and automatic aid agreements with Central Saanich and Highlands fire departments, ensuring continued cooperation and high quality service for citizens.

Mutual aid agreements are essential tools that enable each department to provide assistance across jurisdictional boundaries. The agreements allow departments to share resources and specialty services, such as wildland firefighting, specialty rescue, and obtain critical support for major incidents or other situations where a department’s resources are overwhelmed or committed to other events.

In addition to these mutual aid partnerships, Saanich, Central Saanich and Highlands have new automatic aid response protocols in place, which means resources are dispatched from the nearest fire station, regardless of which municipality the incident is in. By working together, Saanich, Central Saanich and Highlands fire departments now have the ability to provide faster response and better service.

These agreements promote collaboration, streamlined services and leverage economies of scale, resulting in cost effective service delivery and best use of tax dollars. A cost recovery process is also in place to ensure that departments are reimbursed for the service they provide beyond their borders.

Quotes:

Michael Burgess, Saanich Fire Chief -

The Saanich Fire Department looks forward to working with our partners under these new agreements to provide a high level of service to residents of Saanich and the region. Through collaboration, joint training and aligned procedures, these agreements ensure that our approach is modern and provides citizens with the best service possible. The safety of our residents, businesses and fire services staff is our highest priority. I commend our respective fire chiefs for working together and establishing agreements we all benefit from.

Chris Vrabel, Central Saanich Fire Chief -

The Central Saanich Fire Department is proud of our long-standing operational relationship with Saanich. These new agreements foster improved operational efficiency and effectiveness, resulting in a higher level of fire and life safety for our citizens and firefighters.

Dean Ford, Highlands Fire Chief -

The top priority for every fire department is public and firefighter safety. These agreements are an important tool for our departments to call upon when responding to high-risk incidents, such as wildfire, and where additional resources are required immediately to ensure the safety of firefighters and our citizens.

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Media contacts:
Saanich media contact
Michael Burgess, Fire Chief
250-475-5503
fireadmin@saanich.ca

Central Saanich media contact
Chris Vrabel, Fire Chief
250-544-4238
chris.vrabel@csaanich.ca

Highlands media contact
Dean Ford, Fire Chief
250-920-6970
firechief@highlands.ca