Firefighters need to focus on core jobs

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This article was published 30/07/2024 (456 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It takes an average of six minutes for a house to become engulfed in flames. Not every house, of course. Depending on the building materials and contents inside, it may burn slower or faster, with newer builds typically experiencing structural failure quicker than a house made of traditional lumber. In those instances, especially, if firefighters aren’t on the scene immediately, it takes almost no time for it to collapse and burn to the ground.

Thankfully, there’s a fire department nearby. Not just in my south St. Vital neighbourhood where I am three minutes away from a station, but in every community throughout the city.

I’ve had to call 911 exactly two times in my life, both for a loved one’s emergent medical crisis that was thankfully rectified, one with a hospital visit and one without. Of course, as anyone who has ever called 911 knows, it’s not usually the paramedics in an ambulance that arrive first, but a fire engine and four firefighters with at least one dually trained as a paramedic.

Yet having a fire hall close by does not always guarantee a fast response for a fire or medical emergency.

Consider this: the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service is one of the busiest departments in North America on a per capita basis, surpassing cities like Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles, yet resources have not kept pace.

In the Canadian context, the WFPS nearly quadruples fire calls in places like Toronto and Calgary. Further, Winnipeg’s firefighters battle more fires of significance than any other jurisdiction, meaning Winnipeg has a greater frequency of big fires that take more than an hour to fight and require multiple apparatus on scene.

This alone should be a substantial part of any firefighter’s job. Yet ask anyone working in the department today and they’ll undoubtedly tell you that a significant part of the job nowadays is also doing things they weren’t trained to do and don’t always have the capacity for, causing incredible strain on the service and its members.

Put bluntly, today’s firefighters spend countless hours attending non-emergent calls where there is no fire or safety hazard present.

Almost a daily occurrence now, firefighters provide well-being checks for people who are not experiencing medical emergencies and respond to mental health crises. It’s also not uncommon for them to get sent to scenes because someone is acting aggressively or belligerent, are expected to intervene in incidents of vandalism and other criminal activity, and even get involved in domestic violence situations.

Undoubtedly, in most of the above-mentioned cases, intervention is necessary. But surely there’s got to be a better response to non-emergent situations than sending fire apparatus and a team of firefighters. Not only is it creating workload issues, fatigue and burnout, it’s putting us in danger.

That’s because non-emergent calls routinely tie up emergency resources to the point of creating vulnerabilities or gaps in service. It is a growing concern that in any given week, there are moments when resources are unavailable, and if a catastrophe or a major blaze erupts, there’ll be a delay in the arrival of life-saving resources.

In other words, if my house caught on fire and there was six minutes on the clock before it became fully engulfed, even though I’m only three minutes from a fire hall, resources may not arrive in time.

So what needs to be done?

The province has stepped up in a few ways, including a $20 million boost to ambulance funding by my former government, and the current government deserves kudos for providing new funding for 40 more firefighters.

Yet additional cash isn’t the sole answer when the system needs a reboot.

For starters, empowering dispatch resources to find alternate responses for non-emergent situations is worth looking at. Yes, it’s complex. People calling 911 deserve to be treated first with an assumption there is an emergency. But when it is clear that there is no emergency, what then? Alternatives to sending a battalion of fire resources should be considered, including an expansion of the community paramedic program where personnel are trained to handle some of the aforementioned calls.

Firefighters also spend countless hours sitting with stable patients waiting to go to hospital. Expanding transportation options would also go a long way in ensuring life-saving resources are available when most needed, and firefighters should have the ability to disengage and be made available for prioritized emergencies.

As stated before, it’s a complex problem needing a comprehensive solution. But nothing is more complex than waiting on help in a time of emergency.

Rochelle Squires is a recovering politician after 7 1/2 years in the Manitoba legislature. She is a political and social commentator whose column appears Tuesdays. rochelle@rochellesquires.ca