“Go to our website” For Fire Ban Information, Says North Frontenac Mayor

Craig Bakay | Jul 05, 2023

A notice of motion for better communication from Coun. Roy Huetl evolved into a post-mortem on the handling of the recent wildfires at the regular North Frontenac Council meeting June 29 in Plevna.

“The fire, at the end of the day, we handled it great,” said Mayor Gerry Lichty. “There were comments that we were ahead of our neighbours and they were actually following the North Frontenac feed because it was so well done.

“Now we come to the no fire ban, the restricted fire zone.”

The Mayor asked Fire Chief Eric Korhonen for his appraisal of what all occurred.

“The Province put a Restricted Fire Zone (RFZ) in place without consultation,” Korhonen said. “We are not in a high fire hazard area.

“Our rating is zero based on all of the data provided to the community.

“Chief (Kaladar/Barrie Casey) Cuddy agrees with me, as do the other nine fire chiefs, that we are not in a fire ban situation. The Ministry (MNRF) has declared an RFZ because of a manpower situation. They are fully aware that we are not in a fire hazard (here).”

Korhonen said the RFZ does not restrict fireworks and “people have to understand that they are safe.

“There’s mixed messaging from the province but not from the municipality.”

He said the Ministry has 52 fires burning in Northern Ontario and they don’t have the resources to deal with it.

Korhonen said he believes they are working with the Ministry in that on the fire hazard signs it does specify that there is an RFZ in place — no fires permitted.

“(But), we are also working with our businesses and campgrounds to allow them to have campers come in and have campfires, as they are permitted to do under legislation.

“An individual, unmaintained campsite in the bush or our parklands, are not allowed to have campfires, but municipally, we are not in a fire hazard area.”

He said the last RFZ was in 2018.

He said they haven’t put a municipal fire ban on because people are going to have campfires and that will mean firefighters will be chasing campfires “from 9 o’clock at night till two in the morning, every day of the week.

“And then when we have a true emergency, we won’t have responders.”

“When the province puts on a ban, then it’s their responsibility to enforce it,” said CAO Corey Klatt. “If we put on a ban, then it’s our responsibility to enforce it. And, in our opinion, there is no need for such a ban.”

Klatt said he was pleased with the information the Township put up on its website, saying it was as clear as they could make it.

“Go to the website, it’s all there,” said Lichty.

Korhonen said: “On the night of the (Centennial Lake) fire, I was on the phone with the MNR.

“The evacuation ‘order’ came from a weather map.”

Lakeland FHT budget

Coun, Stephanie Regent on her board meeting with the Lakelands Family Health Team: “the auditors were there and their budget’s in line.

“They spend what they get and not a penny more.

“I’ve never seen such a clean budget actually.”

Automatic Aid agreement with CF

Council passed an automatic aid agreement with Central Frontenac for fire services

Fire Chief Eric Korhonen said the automatic aspect applies to structure fires only.

He said Central covers North Frontenac below 509 and the Ardoch Road to Crotch Lake anyway.

“So if there’s a fire inside that line, Central would respond?” said Mayor Gerry Lichty

“Correct,” said Korhonen. “So would North Frontenac.”

Ardoch Lake Condominium extension

Council said it had no objection to an extension of two years for the draft approval of the Ardoch Lake condominium project.

Planner Sonya Bolton said the decision is ultimately Frontenac County Council’s decision but they wanted to see if the Township had any concerns.

“The developer applied for the extension,” she said. “It’s been extremely common through the pandemic when it was difficult to get surveyors, contractors and such.”

Double docking is out

While he was happy to see floating boats addressed in the Zoning Bylaw update saying “we’ve had problems with them in the past and this is going to help us fix them,” Coun. Wayne Good was skeptical that similar amendments to ‘one-property-one-dock’ restrictions would be very effective.

Good said there are “plenty of more than one dock situations” and when told if they’re already there, they’ll be permitted but not for any new building, Good responded “that will be hard to enforce.”