Only a month into his new role, Greater Sudbury Fire Services Chief Rob Grimwood has already lined up a few key priorities right out the gate.
At the top is health, safety and wellness, “without a doubt,” he said, followed by workplace efficiencies and improving volunteer firefighter recruitment.
The topic of volunteer firefighter recruitment has been an ongoing topic of discussion, both due to a provincially mandated increase in training requirements and ongoing municipal efforts to amalgamate fire halls due, at least in part, to dwindling volunteer numbers at certain halls.
This includes the city’s closure of the Beaver Lake emergency services station last year.
In the past, the firefighters’ union has argued that the city’s inflexibility when it comes to training has been to blame for dwindling numbers of volunteer firefighters.
“We have to be respectful of the time demands of volunteer firefighters,” Grimwood said, adding that although provincially mandated training requirements are “necessary and required” due to firefighting being a “high-risk job,” the city needs to allow greater flexibility when it comes to scheduling.
The city needs to ensure the training schedule is reasonable for someone doing this “over and above a regular job, and we’re going to build some flexibility into that,” Grimwood said, adding that these discussions are still in the “early days.”
“We want to be solutions-driven,” he said. “I’m sure there are solutions there.”
Sudbury.com met with Grimwood at the downtown fire hall recently to learn more about his goals as Greater Sudbury’s newly hired fire chief, a role he assumed on Oct. 27.
His latest role was as deputy chief with the City of Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services.
On the lookout for interesting opportunities, he said his new role in Greater Sudbury stuck out.
“It’s a big, growing city, a mix of career and volunteer firefighters, a big risk assessment; community risk and hazards, which gives the chief opportunities to do some dynamic leadership,” he said, crediting Greater Sudbury as “a beautiful city.”
Grimwood’s role is a change from the one outgoing chief Joseph Nicholls held prior to his recent retirement, with the city separating Fire and Paramedic Services into two separate departments with their own chiefs. Aaron Archibald serves as chief of Paramedic Services, while Grimwood has assumed the leadership of Fire Services.
Although newly separated, Grimwood noted that he has decades of experience in paramedic services, and there will remain a great deal of overlap between the two departments.
“I’m a collaborator, so I will take the time necessary to continue to sit down and work with other stakeholders,” he said. “I like to find common solutions, I don’t like driving things into contentious outcomes, so I’m very much a collaborator.”
There have been no lack of contentious situations when it comes to emergency services in Greater Sudbury in recent years, most notably the public protests which accompanied the city’s emergency services revitalization plan, which includes amalgamating certain stations.
This work is very much ongoing, with Barrie-based Salter Pilon Architecture Inc. hired to proceed with the project’s first phase last year (constructing new stations for Minnow Lake and Garson, and extensive renovations to the stations in Val Therese, Long Lake and Van Horne).
Grimwood is no stranger to this type of process, having served in Haldimand County, which is also an amalgamated municipality contending with a hodgepodge of stations that required reductions, which Grimwood said was done “slowly and methodically.”
“One of the things I learned early on is that each community has its own identity and it has its own unique features, so I really took the time of getting to know each community, not only the station and volunteers, but what drives that community, what are their demographics, what drives employment, what types of risk do they have,” he said.
Grimwood was thrown into the public spotlight during 2026 City of Greater Sudbury budget deliberations last week.
Although these business cases were developed prior to his time in Greater Sudbury, Grimwood helped champion efforts to get a four-firefighter boost plus two mechanical officers, to help mitigate overtime hours and bring the department up to speed on safety requirements.
Meanwhile, the city’s main ladder truck (No. 1) was recently brought back into service after being pulled due to mechanical issues in March, followed by the Ministry of Labour flagging training shortcomings with not only this piece of equipment, but various other areas, including decontamination practices which the newly hired mechanical officers will help the department improve.
Although these training shortcomings also predate his time in Greater Sudbury, Grimwood said they’re striving to fill the training gaps the Ministry of Labour flagged as quickly as possible.
He also pledged proactive work to prevent future Ministry of Labour orders, which he referred to as “fair,” from being imposed to begin with.
“It’s all about relationships, working in close collaboration with the joint health and safety committees,” Grimwood told Sudbury.com. “When you work in lock-step in true partnership with the committees, generally things will not get this far.”
Grimwood said that he hopes his time in Greater Sudbury marks “a fresh start to the department.”
“I’m excited about the opportunity, we have a great team of committed firefighters, both career and volunteer, and I’m here to serve them,” he said. “I’m here to make sure their health, their safety, their wellness are taken care of, that they have the right training and equipment to do what is ultimately a really comprehensive and challenging and dangerous job.”