Merritt Fire Rescue looking for new recruits

MERRITT – The spring recruitment process is ongoing for the Merritt Fire Rescue Department.

“We are currently doing a recruit for paid on-call members for the city of Merritt Fire Department,” said Gareth Tilt, Merritt Firefighter and Public Education Coordinator. “Ideally, we are looking to have around seven new recruits come in.”

Tilt breaks down some of the requirements that would need to be met by those interested in joining the force.

“If they are successful through the Candidate Physical Aptitude Test (CPAT) and they meet the other requirements, in the age range of 19-60 and be within 12 km of the fire hall for response, then you’re eligible to go through our training, at no cost to yourself. We get you all the skills you need to potentially get you to the point where you are a fully qualified professional fire fighter.”

If residents are worried about the on-call part conflicting with their work schedule, Tilt added the department is very accommodating.

“We are pretty flexible with our training hours and training times, so if you are shift worker or your work schedule is a little bit all over the place just have the conversation with us, we are more than happy to talk about how things might work. We do training here everyday, as well as Monday nights on kind of a larger scale for most of our on call paid members.”

On a more personal note, Tilt talked not only about the job itself, but the experiences and people you will meet along the way.

“It’s a great way to meet a lot of like minded folks in the community. We are very family focused and really a close-knit group of people. When I first joined, I was really doing it to connect to the community, find a way to give back, learn some neat skills and also they just needed some folks,” said Tilt. “It really brought me into this whole fire family, that’s what we have referred to it over the last ten years. For me it’s been great, a lot of my social connections, my spouses connections, and even my kids connections have all come from within this group of people that we have come to know through the fire department.”

Applications run until the end of the month and you can either head to the fire hall, 1799 Nicola Ave, or head to the Fire Department’s website to apply.