Lethbridge Fire asking city for 2 new stations, cites population growth

Lethbridge’s Fire and Emergency Services is calling on the city to build two new fire stations to keep up with the city’s growth in population.

Last April, a fire in west Lethbridge destroyed three homes. The bulk of the help to battle the blaze came from outside the west side, which the fire department says resulted in poor response time.

“Some of those responders came from the north side station… just a long way to travel,” Richard Hildebrand , Lethbridge Chief of Fire and Emergency Services, said.

Fire officials say the west side station has the same staffing levels today as it did when it was first built in 1980 to serve a population of 4,000. There are almost 40,000 people currently living in that area. The station also continues to be staffed by five firefighters/paramedics per shift, just as it was when it opened 37 years ago. This is why Hildebrand says he is asking the city to build a second west end hall.

“Our goal is to continue to provide a 10-minute response time and certainly a new station on the west side will go a long way to help us continue to do that,” he said.

The department’s goal for emergency events is a 10-minute total response time for 90 per cent of all emergency responses. This includes having 12-15 firefighters respond to a fire in a typical single-family home.

Hildebrand is also asking the city to replace a 53-year-old south side station on 16 Avenue S. The chief says it has been at the end of its life for years and is too small to accommodate any further growth.

“There are some fire trucks already that actually won’t fit in the front door of No. 3 station. It does limit how we use our resources,” he said.

Hildebrand says the existing building could be used as a backup 911 call centre instead. He estimates the two projects could individually cost up to $10-million each.

“Both of these projects are very important,” he said. “It’s difficult to say one is more important than the other because some of that would depend on the staging of the projects. I wouldn’t want to lose any but… it costs a lot of money as we discussed.

“Council has difficult decisions to make. We’ll respect whatever they chose and continue to provide service.”

Council will make a decision in May when they decide which capital projects to include in the City’s 2018-2020 Capital Improvement Program.