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It was more than a decade ago that the Ontario government started to worry about its wildland firefighting program.
Back in 2016, a report warned that fire rangers were quitting at an alarming rate, were less experienced than in previous years and were comparatively underpaid.
Those issues have persisted ever since.
Versions of the report repeated the warnings in 2018 and 2019, while an internal memo from 2022 warned of “an increase in the number of people leaving our organization for employment opportunities elsewhere.”
In the last few years, several firefighters and the union representing them have pushed the issue again — urgently arguing that without change, Ontario will be caught short when big fires hit.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union has pushed for major pay increases, to reclassify wildland firefighters as firefighters, not resource technicians, and more year-round jobs.
As the province faces a record-breaking fire season, with thousands of people evacuated and hundreds of thousands of hectares burned, frustration is growing within the wildland fire service.
Some feel that years of warnings have been ignored.
“There is a big difference in making emergency dollars available when you have no choice but to do that — what about the preparedness dollars that are needed before the fire season even starts?” one senior, retired wildland firefighter told Global News.
The former official was granted anonymity to speak openly about the province’s response.
“The (preparedness) money (is needed) to make sure that you have the 200 fire crews annually budgeted for instead of only the 150 that they currently have in place, that you have enough pilots and engineers in place so that you can fly and maintain all of your firefighting aircraft and so you can have all of your equipment serviceable and ready to be deployed when needed,” they added.
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The government has vehemently denied claims it has failed to prepare for the fire season or that it is underfunding the fight to control the blazes.
It argues that, despite budgeting less than it spent last year for fire this summer, it spends as much as necessary to get control of the fires.
“As fire season severity can fluctuate greatly each year, the province begins with a base allocation for Emergency Fire Fighting,” the Ministry of Natural Resources said in a statement.
“The amount is intended to support emergency forest firefighting activity until a point in the fire season when the total costs can be accurately predicted, at which time the ministry requests total funding requirements required.”
But many in the fire service have, for years, called for more baseline funding to help stem the massive exit of talent.
“I have friends who’ve gone on to do structural fire in Toronto, for example, and a lot of people say, ‘I would have stayed, but I can’t afford to stay,’” Eric Davidson, vice-president of OPSEU Local 728, told Global News.
“These are people that are going to work a job that pays enough that they can afford $2,000 a month rent in Toronto, as opposed to whatever it is up here, substantially less anyway. But people are leaving for jobs that pay well enough that they can afford that, instead of putting up with what they’re being paid here.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources pointed to base budget increases in its statement.
“Funding for base funding has doubled since 2018, from $70 million to $150 million, allowing us to put contracts in place so we can respond immediately during fire season,” a spokesperson wrote. “We have also increased compensation for firefighters and crew leaders.”
The issue of retention, which dates back to the 2016 report, is tied to an ongoing argument about how the Ford government runs its forest fire fight.
There’s little debate over how much Ontario spends fighting forest fires — the tension between the government and its critics is over how it is allocated.
In 2024, for example, Ontario budgeted $135 million but spent $171 million by the time the season had finished. In 2025, the budget wasn’t increased, and the amount spent was $271 million.
For 2026, the government increased its budget to $150 million, still less than it had spent in either of the previous two years.
Critics say Ontario isn’t putting enough up front, while the government claims it is misleading to only factor in the initial budget.
Davidson said budgeting more money to the baseline fire budget could have offered a route to keeping some of the province’s most experienced firefighters on the front lines in the north.
“There’s an unlimited budget for fire suppression, but the problem we’re running into is preparedness,” he said.
“Preparedness only has whatever budget they expect to spend for the year; that means wages, contract lengths, equipment. So you end up with that experience walking out the door. And it’s going out the door so quickly that they don’t have time to pass on any knowledge anymore.”
Premier Ford has said claims from the opposition that the fire program wasn’t ready — or is in any way underfunded — are misleading.
“Firefighting is based on need, so while the base budget is $150 million every year, we spend significantly more than that,” Ford said before the weekend.
“What I find despicable and disgusting that (the) opposition would politicize the amount of money being spent and go out there and put false information out, and it’s inaccurate, it’s untruthful.”
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