Densification, population growth remain major challenges for Calgary Fire Department

Although it saw a slight decrease in emergency calls last year, the Calgary Fire Department (CFD) continues to feel the pressures of working in a growing city, as densification creates new challenges for firefighters.

That's according to CFD's annual report for 2024, which will be presented to Calgary city council's community development committee on Wednesday.

The report says CFD responded to roughly 90,000 calls last year — half of which were medical interventions. That's down from about 93,000 calls in 2023.

CFD Fire Chief Steve Dongworth attributes the slight drop to a 58 per cent decrease in opioid-related calls, which he said could be because of a change to the drug supply, wider availability of naloxone kits and programs such as the Calgary Drop-In Centre's on-site paramedics.

"It certainly doesn't mean we're through the opioid epidemic by any means, but … if less people are getting into situations where they need our help as a result of opioids, that's a great news story for the community," said Dongworth.

However, if you zoom out, the overall situation facing the fire department remains challenging, he said. CFD has seen a 50 per cent increase in calls since 2020, and Dongworth doesn't expect that to change anytime soon.

"We know that we're going to be challenged moving forward, keeping up with the city that's rapidly approaching two million people…. [It's] obviously something that's going to have an impact on every service including the Calgary Fire Department."

And creating more density to keep up with that growth comes with its own set of challenges, he added.

'A double-edged sword'

The debate around density in Calgary intensified last spring when city council approved a blanket rezoning bylaw, which allows row houses and townhouses to be built on most residential lots.

Dongworth said the push for more dense neighbourhoods is a big change from Calgary's legacy communities, where homes were generally built sideways on larger lots, making it more difficult for fires to spread from one home to another.

"Even though there have been some attempts made through codes to restrict this, we still see a very rapid spread between homes that threaten the safety of both the citizens as well as our firefighters," he said.

He added that denser communities are often in areas where CFD's response times tend to be higher.

"It becomes a bit of a double-edged sword that becomes challenging for sure."

But densification comes with important advantages for the fire department and Calgarians, Dongworth said.

"It's an effective way to create a city where the services are more efficient, including the fire service, in terms of less sprawl."

Francisco Alaniz Uribe, an associate professor at the University of Calgary's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and co-director of the Urban Lab, argues densification can help keep fire services sustainable.

He said the challenge with sprawl is that there's often an insufficient amount of people paying property taxes to keep up with the level of infrastructure they expect, resulting in increased response times.

"Imagine that we have 10 people sharing one piece of infrastructure that is in a certain amount of land, and you bring more people into that amount of land — same size of land, but there's more people," said Uribe.

"Now you have let's say 15 people, so you have five more people sharing into the tax base that can then provide a better quality of services."

Dongworth added he'd like to see greater use of non-combustible materials in building new homes, even though it makes them more expensive — a tough pitch to make during an affordability crisis, he said.

Feeling the strain

At the Calgary Firefighters Association, which represents more than 1,600 local firefighters, president Jamie Blayney said his members are feeling the strain.

"We're responding to more and more serious calls, and with the sprawl that Calgary is experiencing, it's just taking us longer to get there," said Blayney.

Staffing has been able to keep up with the demand, he said, and he wants there to be a continued focus on recruitment and retention as the city grows.

"We have some engines that are responding to areas that have upwards of 70,000 people in it. And we need to invest in those areas and we need to prioritize response times into those outlying communities," said Blayney.

The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, which represents roughly 3,200 fire departments across Canada, said these challenges are "endemic across the country" — especially as municipalities everywhere work to tackle a nationwide housing crisis.

"Building three to five million new homes absolutely requires national planning and coordination for fire and life safety," said the association in a statement to CBC.

The association is advocating for a national fire administration that would create better coordination between fire chiefs and federal departments to improve fire safety policies and ease the burden on fire departments.