Ontario Fire College will be shut down permanently

Letter to our members

Today the Fire Marshall Office has announced that the Fire College will be shut down permanently and moving to more online training or regional training locations.

The FFAO positions is that this can only lead to more accessible training and closer venues for all wishing to take courses.

For those who have experienced the college in Gravenhurst this may be a bitter pill to swallow and you also may have strong sentimental attachments and be apposed to this decision, but we feel moving forward there will be better accessible training which can only lead to better training to help protect our firefighter.

The OFC has been closed due to COVID since last March but many of the Regional Centres have cropped up and provided courses and more Regional Centres are on stream to be setup.

At the end of the day this new model will take time to evolve but I believe we all need to give this a chance and the Fire Marshall Office will always be open for suggestions on improvement.

As far as any FFAO future training, nothing has changed for us and when we are able to continue with conventions, we have been assured by the Fire Marshall they will provide assistance to us as they have done in the past.

Any questions or concerns please feel free to contact myself.

FFAO President
Kevin McNeilly
president@ffao.on.ca