Belleville City Council approved receiving funding from the province’s Fire Protection Grant at its meeting on Monday.
The city increased its line item relating to Tools & Equipment under the 2025 Capital Budget by $41,200 which would be covered by the grant.
In September 2024, city staff submitted an application in the amount of $49,680 to the Fire Protection Grant for the purchase of a Bunker Gear Extractor and Equipment Decontamination Machine.
A few months later, staff were notified of a successful application at a reduced amount of $41,152.25 due to the number of applications received by the ministry.
Fire Chief Dan Smith spoke about the need for the machines.
“It’s a great big industrial wash machine,” Smith told council.
“So it’s used for heavy duty decontamination. The way our process works, first off, firefighters would come out of a contaminated area being a fire, and we have a gross decontamination that takes place. So that’s hosing down with basically the hoses right off the trucks. It gets all the heavy debris off them. They take that gear off, it’s bagged, returned to the fire hall, and then it goes through a sequence of events of cleaning. So there’s specialized detergents. We tear apart the equipment, and then it goes into the extractor.”
Smith also spoke on the timing of the grant, saying that the fire service was recognizing Cancer Prevention Month.
Earlier in the meeting, council remembered two retired firefighters who both passed away from lung cancer.
Chris Francescone and Dan Duffy passed away at aged 64 and 60 respectively.
Francescone served 28 years with the Belleville Fire Service and Duffy served 25 years.
Council held a moment of silence for the two firefighters.
Smith says the threat is very real for staff.
“We are supporting them in any way that we can. We’re talking with all of our staff, making sure they’re aware of health and safety requirements, and then just being there for them as well,” Smith told council.
“Some of the members that have been lost are former co-workers of some of our senior staff. So I guess the moral of the story is, we appreciate the support. Council has continued to support us and things that have been specific to health and safety for our staff and protecting our staff. Obviously, we do the best job that we can for this city while we’re here, and the goal is to allow our staff to have a healthy and long retirement.”
