I don't remember any CAF FFs at KAF but I will admit I didn't see everything and I wasn't there a big ton. So I am willing to be educated.
How many were on Impact ?
I'm indifferent on them having left the ships. We've gotten over it IMHO.
They serve a few functions; one is for crash rescue, and (from what I understand) is more for fixed wing when deployed, so things like CF18s, hercs, C17s etc. They were places like Kuwait etc as well as fun spots like Alert.
The other part is group fire marshalls for the camps, so they are spots like Latvia, Iraq, Europe and a few other spots around the globe where we have people. Given the really dumb things they find regularly, as well as the occasional fire they respond to, that's a good preventative and first response measure. They also do some of the fire safety review for camps, buildings and other semi-permanent and permanent buildings so that's a plans examiner/inspector role.
Generating people to do that thing means they need spots on bases to do that, but the trade has shed too many billets to sustain ops plus the actual FD roles so they are on a 1 in 3 duty rotation (vs 1 in 4). With the way it's setup and how some bases are interpreting the leave policy manual, they get dicked over on things like leave (needing 2 days annual to take one shift off).
The RCN inital mitigation of losing FFs expertise was training up HTs to take over that role, which we didn't really do fully, then we fucked that plan by getting rid of HTs. There is a lot of maintenance on basic FF equipment (hoses, nozzles, extinguishers, bunker gear etc) that didn't really have a comprehensive PM plan, but was done by the FFs as part of their routine, and by HTs that were trained by them when they did HCRFF, but that fell into a black hole so took a lot of work to get that kind of sorted out. Still regularly find expired bunker gear (has a lifespan), expired extinguishers (hoses, etc have a lifespan and they need regular inspections so they don't rust out and kill people when used), nozzles that dont' work, eductors that don't work etc.
Off the top of my head can think of two fire responses in recent memory where the nozzles either didn't work at all, or weren't picking up foam, and delayed getting water on. Fortunately they checked it first before getting too close, so training works, but still not good situation.
The other obvious impact is the number of avoidable fires from hot work gone wrong has really skyrocketed, and now routinely have one or two a month, which given the size of our fleet is pretty shit, and at least a few million dollars in damages and multiple people exposed to smoke inhalation during the response.
So yeah, there has been an impact, and it hasn't been good.
The other fun bit is the last few FFs with sea time are coming up on retirement, and we a dwindling number of experienced legacy HTs that got into the Snr HT position, while trying to come up with DC response plans for JSS and SOPs for RCD. At least with RCD, we can start with the RN, but they have higher FF training (and HTs) so their plans may not work for our crew composition and training levels.
Regularly hear navy people trying to come up with FF tactics, while not understanding the fundamentals behind it, but having misplaced confidence that they do, so lot of wasted time and effort in fixing that, and occasionally a 'good idea' that is actually dangerous or dumb gets a lot farther then it should.
