East Hants, Nova Scotia

The Municipality of East Hants comprises rural communities in the eastern half of the county of Hants in central Nova Scotia.
Fire protection in East Hants is provided by twelve individual fire departments which are members of a mutual-aid organization collectively known informally as East Hants Fire Service.
The relationship has been formalized in the Central Nova Scotia Fire Service Association, which includes representatives from mutual-aid departments in the neighbouring jurusdictions of Colchester County, Municipality of West Hants, and Halifax Regional Municipality. There is also an operating relationship with Indian Brook Volunteer Fire Department.
The departments retain their own administrations and corporate identities, but eleven of them have since 2009 operated with a common Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG) document.
Membership in the departments is almost entirely volunteers; Enfield (Station 1100) has two paid members.
Departments in East Hants are identified by station numbers, which prefix radio call signs:
: 100 - Shubenacadie and District Fire Brigade
: 200 - Elmsdale and District Fire and Emergency Services
: 300 - Nine Mile River and District Volunteer Fire Department
: 400 - Lantz Volunteer Fire Department
: 500 - Maitland and District Volunteer Fire Department
: 600 - Milford and District Emergency Services
: 700 - Noel and District Fire Department
: 800 - Rawdon District Fire Department
: 900 - Gore District Fire Department
: 1000 - Kennetcook District Fire Department
: 1100 - Enfield Volunteer Fire Department
: 1200 - Indian Brook Volunteer Fire Department
: 1300 - Walton Shore Fire Department
Radio communication is via the provincial 2nd generation Trunked Mobile Radio System (TMR2), facilitating communication with dispatch and shared operations channels; the assignment of operations channels is done by dispatch at the request of the responding department.
There is a strong mutual-aid protocol in place, with automatic-aid protocols maintained at dispatch for speedy access to resources. Geography in East Hants has led to the formation of smaller sub-groups within the larger body, and each location will generally draw on a slightly different group of departments for a given response. These groupings also tend to train together, although training is also done across all stations and there is conscious effort to maintain communications between the departments.
Category:Hants County