Photo: Facebook / County of Grande Prairie

By Shaun Penner

County Fire

County Fire Service sees another spike in calls in 2018

Mar 26, 2019 | 12:23 PM

The County of Grande Prairie Regional Fire Service once again saw an increase in call volume in 2018.

Calls for service rose to 1,888 total calls, which is an increase of 241 calls from 2017 and 364 calls from 2016.

“I wouldn’t say it is exponential, of course, but we are definitely seeing a curve which is affecting us regionally,” said Fire Chief Dan Verdun. “It’s not just our Clairmont and Dunes stations, it affects us regionally, so that growth was across all of our fire departments.”

The County has nine different stations which offer fire and medical services. Those include Beaverlodge, Bezanson, Hythe, La Glace, Sexsmith, Teepee Creek, Wembley, as well as Clairmont and Dunes.

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Verdun points out that though more densely populated areas see the majority of calls (44%, or 829 calls, came from the Clairmont and Dunes stations), he doesn’t see the County’s level of urbanization as an issue.

“The level of growth and urban densification that we’re currently realizing is pretty minimal, so the impacts are still very minimal in the county,” said Verdun. “In comparison to the city, where you’re getting massive amounts of densification, then you’re going to have an impact to needs. But at this point we are not recognizing any major impacts.”

A substantial increase noted in their annual report was the increase in calls for medical services, which went up by 96 calls, or 37% from 2017. Regional Fire Services attributes a majority of that increase to calls coming from the Lakeview Seniors Home.

One noted decrease in the report was responses to motor vehicle collisions, which accounted for just 20% of calls that the Clairmont and Dunes stations responded to last year.

Financially, the department saw an increase in operating costs, jumping to just over $7.1-million, an increase of 3.7% from 2017. However, capital costs dropped by over 50% to $300,000 for 2018. When broken down, tax payers in the County saw a slight drop in their costs for fire services, going from $425 to $416 per taxable property.

Looking ahead to 2019, the departments main goals will focus around continued fire prevention and education, emergency preparedness and continuous training in all stations.