The Canadian Firefighter's Online Community

Within the chaos of the phenomenon appropriately dubbed "the web", there is a company seeking to bring order online for one very important profession. Firehall Online Inc. is the company behind the portal Firehall.com, a site that provides thousands of relevant links to Canadian fire and rescue resources. With over seven years of service, Firehall has proven itself to be an invaluable resource to anybody interested in the fire protection services. "I feel confident in asserting that we are Canada's number one online resource for fire protection. There are a number of sites that service the United States but have little to no Canadian content," says Firehall Online CEO Cris Leonard (a.k.a. web-chief). "I originally started Firehall as a hobby, now we have thousands of daily visitors viewing close to a million pages monthly." Leonard came up with the concept of Firehall when a personal friend, William's Lake Deputy Chief, Randy Isfeld, mentioned that he had been attempting to find sites relevant to Canadian fire protection. Together, they discovered that there were a number of sites available, but no central resource linking them. Leonard registered the domain "Firehall.com" and the site was born. After operating several years as a hobby project, the site outgrew the one-man show. Firehall Online Inc. was incorporated in 2001 and has since gone through major development. Dan Leonard (a.k.a. fire_code) is the lead developer for Firehall and is responsible for the technical side of the site. He states, "My personal vision for Firehall has always been to encourage community interaction. With the introduction of the Firehall Forum three years ago this vision has long surpassed expectation". With well over 4,000 registered members, the forum receives hundreds to thousands of posts weekly on topics that range from general chat to equipment reviews and mock rescue scenarios. Responses in the forum come from all levels of fire protection professionals from all across Canada. The forum provides a medium for experienced members to share their knowledge with some of the less experienced. "We hope that in some small way we are helping progress the way Canadian departments learn from each other."

Sean Marr (a.k.a. five_alarm) is the man behind the news, posting links to the top stories daily. This is no small feat. Marr searches through hundreds of international news resources to find stories relevant to Canadian firefighting and rescue, "The first half of my day is dedicated to seeking out the top headlines." Marr is also in charge of public relations and handles inquiries of all types, some being quite humorous. "People ask the strangest things," says Marr, "One guy emailed us last week to asked how far his house was from the nearest firehall. That in itself is kind of funny but they did not tell me where they live. That really does show how big Firehall has become. In many people's eyes we are the definitive source for Canadian firefighting information." Make sure you check out Firehall.com. With a wide range of free member services you will likely find yourself in a community where you will feel at home. Who knows, you could even be the next winner of the "Pic of the Week".