Halifax’s firefighting union is calling on HRM for more resources after a weekend that nearly pushed firefighters to their limit.
A 3rd alarm fire at the site of Bloomfield School early Sunday morning, demanded dozens of crew members, with 44 called to the scene which is nearly half of their daily resources according to the Halifax Professional Fire Fighters.
President Brendan Meagher tells our newsroom, many of them battled the fire most of the night, putting a huge dent in the services they can provide.
“Our daily staffing compliment from Sheet Harbour and Tantallon to Upper Sackville to Eastern Passage, is 101 people. There were 44 of those at this one incident. I think that in itself shows what a challenge fire protection and keeping communities safe during a large-scale incident like a fire in this one building in Halifax posed to us.”
The fire at Bloomfield was only one of was only one of “several major incidents” that happened over a 24-hour period including another structure fire, HAZMAT calls and other emergencies in freezing, wintry, weather conditions.
HRM budgets for more crews but not enough
Halifax Council has approved funding for 10 more firefighters to be trained.
They are grateful for the money and although this is a step in the right direction, Meagher says, it is not enough.
“When we look at training our own, we can with resources available, train 20 firefighters in the spring and 20 in the fall. I personally think that we should look at adding the maximum number that we can add with the resources we have to on board them.”
How many new recruits are needed to fill the void?
Meagher does not have an exact number but to give perspective, says we have less firefighters on hand than we did 30 years ago.
“When we look at what the industry standard says for a high rise, we’re looking at 43 firefighters for a high rise. That’s basically ten fire stations right now. Those ten stations that had 99 firefighters in them in 1992 have 46 firefighters.”
More stations
Facilities are also needed.
Meagher says the one scheduled for West Bedford is the first new one in more than 20 years, but still not enough
“[A] city as large as this and with as many fire stations and 5,700 square kilometers is a big challenge.”
With such shortages, Meagher says, if any of the other fires over the weekend was another structure fire it would have been very challenging to fight safely.
“We would like to see an automatic up staffing and a calling of off duty firefighters whenever there’s a three-hour fire like this one on Saturday night.”
