Fort McKay, National Firefighters’ Competition

During the recent Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada’s 25th National Firefighters’ Competition the Fort McKay Fire Department was very proud to be named the best in Canada. This is only the third time ever that this team has competed in the competition so taking the top honor is cause for pride and bragging rights. Both previous years when the Fort McKay team competed they placed 3rd, and according to Deputy Fire Chief Ron Quintal the team was extra determined to get first place this year. Since the National Firefighters’ Competition was held in Fort McKay the team did have a home field advantage but the location was not a guarantee that the fire team would even be given a spot. Chief Quintal stated “Being able to host this on the 25th anniversary was a huge honor for us and we took this very seriously. To put in perspective how seriously we took this, we planned for six months just for this event.”

The National Firefighters’ Competition held in Fort McKay this year involved 15 different and difficult scenarios which firefighters would actually encounter in real life situations. Each team that had a spot was given 4 of the 15 scenarios to complete, and the winner of the competition will be the team to represent Alberta. Since the Fort McKay fire department has a volunteer force the 20 firefighters also hold down full time jobs in other positions, while finding time to train and to fight fires on a volunteer basis. This makes their first place win even more impressive.