Fire services in York Region
Fire services in the York Region of Canada are provided for and by each municipality.
The departments in south York Region deal mostly with residential and commercial incidents.
Fire departments in York Region date back to the 19th century, and all were volunteer units.
East Gwillimbury Fire was the last all-volunteer service in the region until 2008, when the first crew of career firefighters was hired.
East Gwillimbury and Georgina still have some volunteer stations, but the Township of King is the only department which remains as an all-volunteer department, with a staff of 105 volunteers servicing King City, Nobelton and Schomberg.
The command structure is for the most part similar in the fire services across the region: Markham King Central York East Gwillimbury Georgina Richmond Hill Vaughan Whitchurch-Stouffville Even though Bradford West Gwillimbury is not part of York Region, Bradford West Gwillimbury Fire and Emergency Services uses the same numbering system for its apparatus (I.E.: Station 1 is numbered as 10-1) Town of Georgina Fire and Rescue provides fire fighting services to the communities of Keswick, Ontario, Sutton, Ontario and Pefferlaw, Ontario.
Georgina Fire and Rescue has a mix of full-time and volunteer staff with total strength of 90 personnel.
At the time they are the only service with true firefighting capability (SCBA, Hose, Nozzles, etc) for operating on the south shore of the Lake.
The service is supported by York Regional Police in marine firefighting on Lake Simcoe by use of MU2 Naawig, a patrol boat equipped with a water nozzle.
In addition six full-time firefighters are on duty in two shifts during daytime hours in the Queensville firehall.
All other firefighters are volunteers and each station has a staff of 27 and all must be residents of the Town of East Gwillimbury.
This fire department responds to approximately 1000 emergency calls each year.
Expected growth to East Gwillimbury will result in massive changes to the town's population and the change from a part-time paid on-call fire department to full-time staffed 24 hours in the near future.
The service deals with rural scenarios in the north / northwest and urban in the south part of the city.
