The transition to a stand-alone fire department in Canmore may leave residents less protected if they dial 911 for help.
The changes are expected to occur as of April 1, when the municipality has given notice to Alberta Health Services it will no longer provide EMS (Emergency Medical Services) for the area.
While the government department was negotiating with Covenant Health last fall to provide regional services, those talks have fallen through with the result being that AHS will provide that service directly.
Currently, the Town of Canmore integrated service has 13 full-time staff and it remains unclear through the upcoming transition where they will end up.
A business plan accepted by council for the fire department last year sets out eight would remain as full-time firefighters. However, the local union is concerned council will cut more full-time permanent professional firefighter numbers at its first February meeting.
Communications co-ordinator Sally Caudill said this week the staff report and recommendation to council is not ready and she cannot provide details of either.
Canmore politicians have long known a standalone department would cost more money, in addition to costs of operating the $39 million Mutliplex project currently under construction.
Union president Dan Irvine said in an interview with the Outlook there is uncertainty around how council will proceed, but he is worried politicians will cut service levels in one department because of unexpected costs related to the new facility.
“There is a risk of losing firefighter positions,” Irvine said. “It is not about jobs, it is the safety of firefighters and citizens we are concerned about.
“To me, it appears the Multiplex requires additional full-time positions and is putting a strain on other departments.”
Irvine said any cuts to staff numbers would be about saving money, but the result puts public and firefighter safety into question.
He said the union has supported the fire chief through his work with council to come up with the accepted business plan, even though they fear it puts safety in jeopardy, because it is a starting point to work from.
The staffing model in the business plan calls for two firefighters to be on duty at all times, not the four which is recommended by professional associations and preferred by the union.
International Association of Firefighters vice-president for Western Canada Lorne West said he is quite concerned about service levels and the possibility of decreased staff numbers in Canmore.
West said staffing a fire hall with four members on a shift instead of two dramatically increases the department’s ability to respond to emergency situations. Four firefighters means a truck can roll out to a structure fire in under 10 minutes 90 per cent of the time and can immediately engage in search and rescue operations and maintain communications on scene.
With only two people, that response time is met 60 per cent of the time and neither firefighter would be able to enter a building to rescue people inside.
“What (Canmore) is moving towards is a model without enough people on an engine to even begin a rescue operation,” West said. “That extra delay can make the difference of a person dying or not in a fire.”
In these types of situations, response time is critical to saving property values and lives. The longer it takes for a full response to a structure fire, he added, the further along a fire gets on what is called the fire propagation curve.
“Within 10 minutes of a fire beginning it reaches a back draft situation,” he said. “That is when it is the most dangerous for firefighters and people in the building.”
West said if further reductions to staff numbers of the department occur it takes fire protection to the point of ‘ridiculous’ in Canmore.
“It is misguided, poorly thought out and puts the public and firefighters at risk,” he said. “Canmore is the only town in Alberta that is reducing service.”
The 2012 approved operating budget for the standalone department, with eight full-time staff, is $1.35 million, an increase of $489,278 over the 2011 budget of $764,667.
During 2012 budget discussions in December, Councillor Hans Helder put forward a motion to review three of the eight positions in the department. Helder made the motion because in the budget they appeared as new positions, which are subject to a council approval process they were not put through.
The City of Cochrane also had an integrated department and chose to divest from providing ambulance services. It went from a staff of eight for both services to eight paramedics and eight firefighters in 2009.
Since then, Cochrane has added firefighters and now it has 18 full-time fully trained staff, which has a corresponding 2012 budget amount of $3.43 million.
Cochrane Firefighters Association president Jared Wallace said that community’s politicians have guaranteed a full response to its citizens should a fire occur.
“Cochrane took the step of securing its fire department and did not let years of work go to waste,” he said, adding he is not sure Canmore’s approach is self sufficient or safe. “These two very similar communities have taken opposite approaches… Cochrane has guaranteed fire response with paid professionals and Canmore is operating a bare bones department.
“It definitely is a cause for concern for people in Canmore.”
But, along with how the fire department will operate there are questions surrounding AHS’s delivery of ambulance services.
Nick Thain, director of suburban and rural operations for EMS in the Calgary zone, said service levels will not change as of April 1.
“The plan is AHS is now moving to ensure residents of Canmore and area receive the same level of ambulance service,” he said. “That same level of service will be directly provided by AHS.”
Thain said AHS will run two advanced life support ambulances and they will be stationed at Canmore Hospital, which aligns with the department’s five-year plan to integrate the service into health care.
He said currently AHS is in negotiations with the municipality with respect to its assets; two ambulances. Whether staff will transition to AHS is still to be determined based on Canmore’s upcoming decisions he added.
Canmore politicians have expressed concerns in the past regarding the fact AHS, since taking over governance and funding in 2009, has routinely dispatched both ambulances outside the community.
In 2011, there were no ambulances within the town limits 162 times and on 11 of those occasions the fire department provided a medical first response.
“AHS uses a system status management plan that utilizes resources throughout a geographic area for the provision of EMS,” Thain said, adding there may be instances where local EMS resources cannot respond, but other ambulances within the region will be deployed.
Banff, Nakoda and Cochrane all have ambulances that have responded and, over the weekend, Canmore Fire and EMS reported an ambulance that was 246 kilometres away was responding to a call in the valley.
Canmore’s fire department is staffed with trained paramedics and does respond as a medical first response. That response, however, does not get financial compensation for staff time or resources from the province.
Thain said when ambulances were taken over by the province, the minister made it clear providing that service is up to municipalities.
“It is their choice,” he said, adding it is at the cost of the municipality as well.
