Residents of a rural area between Vernon, B.C., and Lake Country, with no local fire service, won’t be getting coverage from the Vernon fire department anytime soon.
The majority of Vernon city council voted on Tuesday not to offer fire coverage to the Commonage area as it wouldn’t make financial sense for the municipality.
There are around 40 properties in the rural area that have no fire coverage.
The issue has become more pressing for some residents since a blaze in the unprotected neighbourhood killed three people last month.
“I just want to make sure that the general public understands we are not refusing this because we just don’t want to do it. We just don’t have the staffing to do it,” said Vernon Coun. Akbal Mund.
The city’s fire chief said to provide timely coverage to the unprotected rural area, the city would need to staff Station 3, in the nearby Vernon neighbourhood of Predator Ridge, full-time, and that would cost at least $1 million a year.
Chief David Lind said Vernon could only hope to get about $40,000 in revenue from residents of the area seeking fire coverage.
That means that extending coverage would put a major cost on Vernon taxpayers.
There was a discussion during the council meeting about revisiting the issue when Vernon has increased staffing.
“What we would be able to collect from the residents is nowhere near what we would be required to pay out.”
The Vernon fire department does not have a timeline for when it will have the staffing at Station 3 to consider extending coverage in the Commonage area.
The fire chief said right now only about 25-40 of the fire department’s 4,400 calls each year come from the Predator Ridge area.
Lind said the city is currently working to finish its existing strategic plan “which focused on opening Station 2 on Okanagan Landing,” and that the next strategic plan will be presented to council in 2024.
Comments