To ensure we deliver the highest level of service that our community deserves, the DNVFRS provides comprehensive ongoing training to its members. In 2023, the DNVFRS training budget was $443,000, which allowed DNVFRS to provide 10,748 hours of specialized training to 141 firefighters. 

Specialized Training (Overview) 

Each year, DNVFRS provides specialized training in multiple fire and rescue disciplines, including fire behaviour, swift-water rescue, high-angle rope rescue, vehicle extrication, fire ground operations, wildland firefighting, emergency vehicle operator and emergency medical responder. 

DNVFRS’s professionally certified instructors deliver these sessions, typically at a dedicated training centre or at various offsite training locations within its response area. 

DNVFRS trained its firefighters in several new and expanding areas in 2023.  

This included expanding the medical care and treatment we can provide as first responders in emergency situations. Our team also participated in enhanced rope-rescue training at the more challenging locations, including Quarry Rock, Lynn Canyon, and Capilano Canyon to improve the safety of the public and responders. 

Here is an overview of the specialized training we provided to our firefighters in 2023. 

Specialized Training by Discipline (Top Five Disciplines) 

Foundational Skills Training (Overview) 

Foundational skills training supports and maintains fundamental abilities every firefighter must have.  The company officers provide this training, which includes ladder operations, incident command training, traffic safety, radio communications, hose deployment, gas and electrical safety, and building construction. 

This training ensures DNVFRS firefighters maintain the required competency standards for full-service firefighters, as outlined by the BC Office of the Fire Commissioner in the BC Fire Service Minimum Training Standards (formerly ‘the Playbook’). 

Here is an overview of the foundational skills training we provided in 2023. 

Interagency Training Highlights 

DNVFRS participated in training events with many of its regional emergency partners and regular training initiatives with its fellow North Shore fire departments. Some examples of this training include: 

• Canada Task Force 1 (CANTF1) — Monthly training with Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, Vancouver Police Department, British Columbia Ambulance Services, and North Shore fire departments. 
• Municipal and Metro Vancouver Parks staff training — Training includes radio communications, fall restraint, swift-water awareness, wildland firefighting, and emergency medical first aid. 
• JIBC Shipboard Firefighting for Land-Based Firefighters —Training involving all three North Shore fire departments, Seaspan Vancouver Shipyards, Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, North Vancouver RCMP, Vancouver Police and Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue. 

Justice Institute of BC (JIBC) Partnership 

The JIBC is a provincially recognized industry leader in emergency service educational programs and training. 

In 2020, we initiated a fire training partnership agreement with the JIBC that recognizes DNVFRS as an authorized provider of accredited training courses for the JIBC. This partnership will enable us to work with the JIBC to enhance and improve the quality of fire training programs available to our region’s fire service agencies.  

In 2023, 12 DNVFRS members and two North Vancouver City Fire Department members completed the Fire Officer Development Course (ODC) under the JIBC and DNVFRS partnership agreement. The ODC provides the professional development curriculum required for the future leaders of the DNVFRS. 

New Maplewood Fire & Rescue Training Centre

In the Master Fire Protection Plan 2009, DNVFRS recognized the potential for increased operational efficiencies and effectiveness by consolidating facilities. In 2015, efforts became more focused, looking at possibly co-locating the current Fire Station #2, the Fire Training Centre, the headquarters and administrative functions, and re-allocating some response assets (Rescue-1 and Tower-1). In early 2018, we began planning for the new Maplewood Fire and Rescue Centre, with a ground-breaking ceremony coming in February 2022. 

Early in these discussions, we recognized that combining a fire station, training centre, and administrative functions into one new facility would improve fire response times, create operational efficiencies and optimize the capital investment over the long term. 

We anticipate this sustainable, energy-efficient 45,000-square-foot facility will be operational and serving our community by the summer of 2024. Built to post-disaster standards to maintain services in emergencies such as power outages and earthquakes, the new building is anticipated to reduce energy use by 71% and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 92% compared to the existing buildings it replaces.  

We look forward to all the opportunities this facility will bring to our fire department, our emergency response partners on the North Shore, and our community.