North Bay's new fire chief is on the job

North Bay’s new fire chief comes to the city from Woodstock. where he was deputy chief.

Jason Whiteley is now on the job in North Bay.

He says a firefighters number one responsibility is to make a difference in the people they come into contact with, whether that’s in responding to a fire or an accident, advising people on fire prevention issues or helping someone at a stressful time.

His two big concerns in covering fires are ensuring the safety of the public and the firefighters.

Whiteley says there are a lot of issues to assess when fighting fires, including how long the fire’s burning, what is burning, were they notified quickly, did the family have a working smoke alarm and are there people inside.

He says tactics change if that’s the case.

Meantime, Whiteley says education is important too, from a fire prevention perspective.

He says they don’t have a big staff in terms of educating the public on what they can do to prevent fires.

But, it’s something he believes is very important.

In fact, Whiteley wants to be more pro-active in inspections.

He also says the department will be much more active in letting the public know what they’re up to through Twitter on immediate issues and Facebook, as well.