The Halifax fire union is renewing its call for more resources now that the city is about to go into budget talks.

Having been fighting fires for nearly 30 years, president of the Halifax Professional Fire Fighters Brendan Meagher tells us he wants to build awareness over how much their service is needed.

“We look at fire response. It’s lifesaving. It’s public safety and it’s also housing security. We look at the investment that goes into our service as a cost rather than as an investment,” says Meagher.

He says their message is simple and always the same but important.

“A consistent investment and long-term view of where we need to get to staffing, station placement and an apparatus,” explains Meagher.

Not only is response time important but what happens when they don’t have enough people to complete a task?

“You have to start adjusting your tactics and your strategy to work with what you have and limit loss to the best of your ability,” says Meagher. “It’s a terrible feeling when you show up too late.”

How short are they?

The city approved 20 more firefighters to be hired in March.

Meagher says that is not nearly enough considering the number of members who will likely retire.

“We need to hire 20 spring and fall for the next four or five years to catch up to where we should be,” adds Meagher. “We’ve grown our service, but we contracted over two decades before we started to grow. ”

He says, now that in the last years there’s been some investment in the fire service, it needs to be consistent to be focused on the long-term needs of our communities.