The 65th anniversary of Firehouse 18 was held in Fort -Coulonge last Friday evening. The evening saw a celebration of the town’s fire department, with speeches, award ceremonies and a dinner.

Two firefighters received watches for 25 years of service. The first was Fire Chief Gaétan Fortin, who served for 26 years and the second for Michel Fortin with 27 years. The awards were delayed due to covid putting the ceremonies on hold.

Fort-Coulonge Mayor Christine Francoeur thanked the assembled firefighters for their service.

“[Being firefighters] takes a lot out of them,” said Francoeur. “I find because they have full time jobs, they have families, and they train a lot of the time. So these are good men. We need people like that. And we’re always recruiting for new firefighters.”

Francoeur also noted the presence of female fighters in the Fort-Coulonge fire department.

“We now have three women firefighters, which was not allowed before 1992. So that’s not that long ago. We’ve evolved since then. I’m happy about that,” said Francoeur.

“Sixty-five years of a fire brigade is, to me, an honour to be able to be part of,” said Fortin, who has been chief for 15 years in an interview after the evening’s speeches. “Because we’ve picked up where other chiefs have left off. And for the era that they worked in, well, we could say that they did their best with what they had. And we’re fortunate enough that what we have today is due to these people and them sacrificing time from home, doing fundraisers and going out on calls.”

“We’ve accomplished a lot,” said Fort-Coulonge Assistant Fire Chief Gilles Dionne. “And there’s lots of stuff that needs to be accomplished yet. We’re still working on it. We have equipment that we need.”

During his remarks Fortin noted the flexibility and diversity of the volunteer force as one of its greatest strengths.

“It is a temporary fire service consisting of many people with different jobs. So we have an electrician, we’ll have mechanics, we will have truck drivers and we will have a nurse. In my opinion, it basically makes us better equipped to be able to respond to many different types of emergencies,” explained Fortin. He said that in all kinds of situations that arise, these specific technical skills that volunteers bring can make a huge difference, whether it’s an electrician for an electrical fire, a truck driver in a situation where precise driving is required, or a nurse in a medical emergency.

Fortin added that maintaining the necessary amount of personnel and equipment is the biggest challenge of the job.

“It’s hard to be able to secure funding for certain equipment, because year by year, everything is getting so expensive,” said Fortin “And small towns like Fort-Coulonge, Mansfield or any other little town, like this, do not have the capacity to be able to purchase equipment like big cities can as the funding is not always there.”

Right now, the main fundraising target of the Fort-Coulonge FD is to purchase a new breathable air compressor, which can cost more than $65,000. This would allow the Fort-Coulonge to supply other fire departments with compressed air, according to Dionne.

On recruitment, Fortin explained that like other fire departments across the Pontiac, attracting and keeping personnel remains an issue.

“There’s not that many young people that are interested anymore in becoming firefighters due to the fact that now with the training that’s involved. It’s very difficult. And people don’t want to really take the time to do this,” said Fortin.

In order to address this problem, Fortin and Dionne explained that there is currently a pilot project in the works to encourage and enable highschool students to take level one firefighter courses. At a recent presentation at ESSC (École secondaire Sieur-de-Coulonge), 30 students expressed interest in taking the course, according to Dionne.

“A pilot project could be beneficial for the entire Pontiac, ‘’ said Fortin.

I think it would be a great asset to any fire brigade because it’s not only going to be for Fort-Coulonge or Mansfield. Kids going to ESSC come from anywhere in the Pontiac. So that could be beneficial for let’s say, Shawville, Campbell’s Bay, Waltham, and Pontiac West.

Fortin concluded by saying this program still had to go through some red tape before being implemented, but they’re enthusiastic about it.

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