Fire departments serving Aurora, Newmarket and Georgina are the York Region fire services benefitting from new provincial funding.
The Ontario government is investing more than $10 million to build five state-of-the-art training facilities and train thousands of firefighters for in-demand careers in fire and rescue services.
“Investments in firefighter training are investments in the safety and resilience of our communities,” said Premier Doug Ford in a statement. “This new funding will help ensure that our firefighters have the skills and resources they need to protect people and communities and return home safely to their families.”
Central York Fire Services is receiving $865,046 to support the construction of a new fire training facility in Aurora to serve Aurora and Newmarket.
The multi-level fire-simulation structure will be located at the Station 4-5 at 300 Earl Stewart Dr. in Aurora, just south of Newmarket.
The structure is aimed at significantly increasing in-house training and development opportunities, achieving efficiencies and reducing overall training expenses.
Meanwhile, Georgina is getting $550,436 to support the construction of a new fire and rescue training facility and $439,373 to deliver training to its volunteer firefighters.
The funding comes from the province’s Skills Development Fund, with $9 million being allocated to the construction of the training centres, the province said in a statement.
Once built, the centres will have the capacity to train more than 28,000 firefighters over a five-year period, helping to meet the emergency response needs of growing communities across Ontario and allowing local firefighters to get the training they need closer to home, it said.
In partnership with the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association (OPFFA), the province is also investing approximately $970,000 in a training project that will provide fire ground survival training to firefighters across the Niagara, Toronto and Kingston regions.
Other communities receiving funding are:
- Orangeville: $3,667,650 to support the construction of a new fire services campus to replace the existing building to train members of Orangeville Fire.
- Clarington: $3,216,384 to support the construction of a new fire training complex to help meet the community’s emergency response needs and provides effective training for future leaders in the fire department.
- Hanover: $780,331 to support the construction of a new fire hall to support local training of the Hanover Fire and Rescue.
Since its launch in 2021, Ontario’s Skills Development Fund Training Stream has helped connect more than half a million jobseekers with the skills and training they need to find careers close to home, the province’s statement said.
There are about 30,000 firefighters in Ontario, including about 12,000 full-time firefighters, nearly 19,000 volunteer firefighters and more than 400 part-time firefighters, it added.