In a crisis situation, 10 minutes is a long time to wait for emergency rescue services to arrive.
That’s how long it takes for fire crews to travel to some of Edmonton’s newer neighbourhoods.
In an email to Global News, fire rescue representatives said the average response time for the Hawks Ridge, Rural West Big Lake, Trumpeter and Starling neighbourhoods in the west end is more than 10 minutes.
That’s a 43-second improvement after Edmonton’s Lewis Farms Fire Station opened in October. It’s Edmonton’s 29th station, the furthest west in the city.
“Our objective, 90 per cent of the time, is to have the first unit on scene within seven minutes of our dispatch centre receiving the call,” Fire Chief Ken Block said. “We’re not meeting those metrics in the outlying areas. Again, based on where our stations are located, it’s impossible to do.”
Block said shaving three minutes off of the average response time for the area won’t be easy – and it won’t be cheap either, as it would require the addition of a new fire station in the west end.
“We’re talking $10 million plus for a station and adding about three-and-a-half-million dollars year over year for the crew to staff the station and deliver the service,” he said.
Edmonton Fire Rescue has plans to build a fire hall in the Big Lake neighbourhood but that station is priority number five in the master plan.
Block said plans for new stations are based on population metrics. A new fire hall is typically added to an area once it hits 30,000 people.
READ MORE: Lethbridge Fire asking city for 2 new stations, cites population growth
“While our response times need to improve in those areas, we are not getting a lot of calls there,” Block said. “So in the bigger picture, every call is important, but it’s good to know there’s not an overabundance of calls in the outlying areas.”
Fortunately, residents in the Trumpeter neighbourhood say they have yet to see any major fires.
Chris Famulak has been living in the Trumpeter neighbourhood for three years, and while he said he’s never seen a fire in the area, the chief’s comments are cause for concern.
“Obviously if it did happen, we’d like to have assurance that we’d be looked after,” he said.
Justin Schriever has been living in the area for a year. Like Famaluk, he hasn’t witnessed any problems with fires, but would hope firefighters would be able to arrive quickly in an emergency situation.
“If the average response time is supposed to be seven-and-a-half minutes and (the chief’s) shooting for 11 minutes out here, (the chief) should probably have a station closer,” he said.
As the city continues to expand, reaching those target times will only get more difficult.
“The growth, the expansion outward does put pressure on services,” Block said. “Really, when you think about it, it’s virtually impossible to keep perfect pace with that growth.”