Features Hot topics
Fire Fighting in Canada’s spring conference and trade show tour

Spring marks the start of a multi-month cross country show season for Canada’s fire service and its vendors. Fire Fighting in Canada hit the road for a few of the annual stops, starting with the Ontario Association of Fire Chief’s conference and trade show at the International Centre in Mississauga from May 2 to 4. Ontario Premier Doug Ford toured the show floor on Saturday, visiting with some of the 167 vendors and over 300 attendees. A couple conference highlights amongst many include a leadership keynote from former Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke and an engaging session from Ottawa Fire Chief Paul Hutt on ideas for communicating with your department. The Ottawa department has made use of inexpensive video platforms to deliver department wide messaging ranging from Christmas humour to safety alerts, training reminders, announcements about new equipment, fitness initiatives, and more. The screens are silent in common areas so it is not noise intrusive while serving as an effective way to impart key information.

The Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs will hold their 2025 conference from May 1-3 in Mississauga. For 2026, the association will be moving the annual event to the Niagara Falls Convention Centre in Niagara Falls from November 19 to 21.

Next stop on the Fire Fighting in Canada show circuit: Kamploops, B.C., for the annual Fire Chiefs’ Association of BC conference and expo. Over 180 trade show booths were on display at the Sandman Centre from June 2-3, hosted by 348 registered trade reps. Trade show attendance neared 550, and surpassed 2023 as the biggest expo the B.C. association has ever hosted. Total attendance, including the expo and education summit reached 950, also an all-time high. The B.C. Chiefs’ show featured some cool new equipment, such the SkyScout Ai, a large drone that uses satellite networks for surveillance and detection, and a communication system that responds to threats by deploying a drone system to drop fire retardant. The educational summit ran from June 4 to 6, with an opening keynote by David Griffin called “In Honor of the Charleston 9: A Study of Change Following Tragedy”, which is based on the best-selling book that chronicles an incident in which nine firefighters perished. NFPA Canadian regional director Laura King delved into lithium-ion battery fires and the evolving NFPA 855 standard, Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg shared a keynote on life and leadership lessons learned the hard way and the closing discussion covered lessons learnt from 51 days wildfire in the central Okanagan last year.

The 2025 FCABC Conference and Educational Summit will be held in Penticton from June 8 to 12.

Later in June, Fire Fighting in Canada headed east to Summerside, P.E.I, for the Maritime Fire Chiefs Association’s Atlantic Leadership Conference from June 27 to 30 at Credit Union Place. The trade show opened Friday and the evening social included a station that served 1000 fresh shucked P.E.I. oysters courtesy of Fort Garry Fire Trucks. The event saw 125 attendees and115 vendors gather, with the trade show running Friday to Saturday and meetings and conference sessions running Thursday through Sunday. Speakers included Arjuna George, Jason Brolund, Laura King, Belinda Seagram, Dave Rossiter, Sherry Dean, Dalhousie and Stephanie Arnold. Session topics ranged from leadership, to living with wildfires, Hurricane Fiona takeaways and interoperability.

Next up, Fire Fighting in Canada will be at the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs’ Fire Rescue Canada, held September 22 to 25 in Montreal.