Category: Uncategorized

2015 was a fairly busy year for us. Here are a few numbers to show what we’ve been up to:

Here’s a breakdown of what made up those 129 calls that we did last year:

Yesterday evening at 8:40PM HIFR was alerted to the possibility that Jordan McKenzie had gone missing. After our duty officer gathered some initial information and alerted the RCMP, we did a general page to activate our members. We sent several crews out to the most likely locations, which were the trails near his home and the coastline near Phipps Point. At about 10:45PM one of our crews found Jordan between Phipps point and Collishaw point. He was deceased.

The RCMP were notified and arrived at approximately 2AM with the coroner. After examining the scene HIFR took Jordan’s body off of the shoreline using our basket stretcher and we ended our involvement at 6AM.

We are extremely saddened at this event. We all knew Jordan and many of us were close friends. Our hearts go out to his family and friends in the community.

For more information you can contact the RCMP or the BC Coroners Service.

The weather was perfect and the crowd was huge for this year’s polar bear swim. About 80 swimmers took to the water and a crowd of over 250 enjoyed hotdogs and hot chai, compliments of HIFR.

Just before 4:oopm on Labour Day, we received a call for a mountain bike accident on No Horses trail near Strachan Road. Fortunately our recent locum, Doctor Nick Bartell was also on the trail and came on scene and provided initial care while alerting 911 and the nature of the injuries. We arrived and after ‘packaging’ for spinal immobilization we transported the patient to the landing strip and the waiting BCAS medical crew and helicopter.

We get 4 or 5 such helicopter evacuations each year and Gregg happened to spot a good photo on this occasion:

At the beginning of August, Rookies Bailey Gordon and Scott Towson, completed their firefighter practical evaluation testing and written knowledge test.

Congratulations to our new Firefighters Bailey and Scott for their dedication to training and serving our community.

Have you thought about joining us? We are looking for new recruits and have this Question and Answer page of some initial questions you may have.

Talk to a firefighter or come out on a Thursday night at 7:30

Q&A for recruits

Congratulations to Quana Parker, who recently moved from the ranks of “rookie” to full fledged firefighter by passing his in-house proficiency test.  The test ran him through all of the things that are unique to our department like the water tank network, our portable pumps, where we keep things on our trucks, and our specialized procedures. It is a 6 hour test and he crushed it.

Quana was a member of the department 15 years ago before he moved to Vancouver. We’re thrilled to have him back. Congratulations Q.

We just witnessed an incredible demonstration of democracy in action and community pride. After what seemed like an endless parade of flyers, voters turned out in record numbers to support our plan for the future.

Locals had smiles on their faces as they went to vote! A really positive event.

It was truly amazing to keep running into friends who own property here but don’t live here. They had come to vote. Wow!

Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone who voted, whether yes or no. Thank you for making the effort to make your vote count.

We are excited for the future.

Following the count at Saturday’s assent voting for the Hornby Island fire hall borrowing bylaw, the unofficial results are as follows:
YES – 623 (83{99e9ada67dac39a50d0f689a42cd9e161cfeac89d8ef38f636e75bc823e6d3b2})
NO – 126 (17{99e9ada67dac39a50d0f689a42cd9e161cfeac89d8ef38f636e75bc823e6d3b2})

A chief election official’s review will be conducted early next week and the official results will be announced before Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 4:30