Lake of Bays Council approved the Fire Department’s request to start invoicing utility companies for Hydro related calls, in the August 13, 2024, meeting.
Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Chief, Gary Monahan, told Council that the department, who is often the first being called for incidents like Hydro wire issues, spends a lot of time on them, including sitting on the road waiting for Hydro to show.
According to Monahan’s report, these calls also make them unavailable to deal with other situations in the community.
The report adds that the department responds to about 70 Hydro wire calls each year, with over 22% of responses lasting over an hour.
It continues that between 2019 to 2023 they responded to 349 hydro wire incidents totalling 1,086 hours, costing $24,777 in wages.
“Firefighters are paid for a minimum of 60 minutes on all responses under 60 minutes and are then paid every 15 minutes after the first hour,” indicates the report.
Councillor, Rick Brooks, said, “It’s a lot of time and effort, and equipment sitting doing nothing, waiting for Hydro to show up.” He added that it’s something they need to get on board with and given that other municipalities are doing it.
According to the report, some municipalities bill the utility companies, however, Welland bills its residents. Welland Fire Chief, Adam Eckhart, said, “We bill the person/party responsible for bringing the wires down. Normally the same party that the utility invoices and/or the insurance company pays. We invoice the property owner.”
Monahan advised, “The first 60 minutes are free.” After this, once they determine a crew is needed, they will charge after that.
The report indicates that after the hour the Fire Department will “charge the full MTO rate for a Pumper on standby or ½ the MTO rate for an Administration Vehicle on standby.”
It adds that if the department had billed annually for recovered costs since 2019, they would invoice the Utility Company $31,813 (the full cost recovery would be $69,911).
It continues that the cost recovery revenue received will be added to the departments Operating Budget.