WELLINGTON NORTH: Wellington North held their final regular Council of the month and discussions saw some reform regarding fire response in the Township.
Wellington North Fire Services (WNFS) will receive some extra support from regional fire departments, as discussed in a Council meeting on Aug. 10.
One of the recommendations made to Council was for Centre Wellington Fire Rescue (CWFR) to provide special rescue services for Wellington North.
According to a report submitted by WNFS director, Chris Harrow, the partnership is partly based on the fact that Minto no longer provides water rescue and confined space rescue teams to Wellington North, and the Township must look elsewhere for those services.
As moved by Council, CWFR will now provide specialized rescue operations within the Township of Wellington North.
Councillor Steve McCabe was wondering about response time, and asked Harrow if CWFR could make it to the farthest reaches of Wellington North in a timely manner.
Harrow said WNFS and CWFR would ultimately be dispatched at the same time through Guelph Fire Dispatch.
McCabe was also questioning why a specialized rescue team for Conestoga Lake hadn’t been developed in-house, but Harrow said the training would take time WNFS does not have.
Harrow said WNFS would not be fully relinquished of duties for special rescue calls and would be on-site in Wellington North supporting CWFR.
Specialized rescue calls will be billed to Wellington North by Centre Wellington with a $5000 annual fee, set to increase by $100 each year during the agreed time, and an hourly rate of $583.06 during rescue response.
The per-hour rate is based on the Ministry of Transportation rate as of Aug. 10, 2026.
However, another recommendation was moved by Council which should provide some on-call relief for WNFS and surrounding departments.
Report FIRE 2026-003 introduced the Borderless Response Agreement.
The report said “The current system works well for getting multiple stations on scene, but doesn’t always allow the closest stations to respond.”
The new borderless agreement allows any fire station to respond to an incident in any of the three municipalities (Wellington North, Minto and Mapleton) as if it were their own based on a “drivetime” analysis.
The drivetime analysis determines which trucks responds to a service call, and the analysis is based on road networks, traffic concerns and speed limits.
Harrow said this agreement should provide relief for firefighters within the region.
Councillor McCabe said he supports a borderless response intiative.
Both recommendations were moved by Wellington North Council.
CWFR Rescue Unit 45 | Mik Horvath
