Closing Calgary fire halls, trimming crew sizes panned as city looks for cost savings

Calgary should save at least $15 million a year by reorganizing the fire department but both firefighters and city administrators are rejecting two aspects of a proposal to streamline the service that would save tens of millions more.

A third-party report suggests closing up to five fire halls while foregoing the construction of three others in new communities.

In addition, it recommends reducing the number of firefighters on an engine crew to three on a trial basis, down from the current complement of four.

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Those are just two among dozens of recommendations in the report but they both caught the attention of city managers and the firefighters union alike.

"We feel it is absolutely critical that four people be on every truck," chief city planner Rollin Stanley told councillors during a committee meeting Wednesday.

The report estimates $2.6 million in additional annual savings under a three-person-crew pilot project.

But Mike Carter, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 255, said reducing an engine company's size — even on a trial basis — would "dramatically" increase the risk to front-line firefighters and Calgarians as a whole.

Fewer halls cheaper but riskier

Carter also expressed grave concern at the suggestion of closing five fire halls and foregoing the construction of three new halls by accepting a relaxed response-time standard of eight minutes.

"That significantly increases the risk to properties and lives," he told councillors.

The report estimates the city could save an additional $51 million in one-time costs if the three new halls were not built. The city could also save $44.4 million annually if it accepted the eight-minute standard, as that would mean fewer fire halls would be needed. 

Added to the $2.6 million in savings from three-man crews, the number totals close to $47 million in annual cost reductions.

Response times already behind, says union

Carter noted, however, that Calgary's current seven-minute standard is already longer than the National Fire Protection Association's recommended level of six minutes and 20 seconds.

There's a "misconception," he added, that Calgary's newer buildings are more resistant to fire and slower to burn than structures built decades ago.

"That's actually not the case," Carter said, adding firefighters respond to blazes on a "regular basis" at newly-built homes that light up much faster than those built in the 1970s because of the types of construction materials used in modern builds.

Next steps

The rest of the less drastic recommendations in the report were more enthusiastically received by city staff and the firefighters union, as well as Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart.

The Ward 13 councillor said there are "different areas where we can find efficiencies" without reducing fire halls or engine crew sizes.

The report is set to go before council, as a whole, later this month.

If approved, the current proposal would give the fire department and senior city managers until January 2017 to come back with a plan to implement the recommended changes.