PRINCE ALBERT — The Prince Albert Fire Department (PAFD) set another record for calls they responded to in 2024, with a seven per cent increase over last year. The department is approaching a 2,000 call volume for the year.
The numbers were included in a report received by the Executive Committee during their meeting at City Hall on Monday. Deputy Chief Alex Paul presented the report, showing members responded to 1,959 calls in 2024, an increase of 133 calls from 1,826 in 2023. Between 2021 and 2022, calls jumped from over 1,200 in 2021 to 1,700 in 2022.
Paul said that the increase is not huge, but it is notable.
“We're approaching that 2,000 call volume mark, and probably in 2025 we're set to break the 2,000 mark,” he said.
The largest category of responses was in the wildland or outdoor fire category at 584, a 36 per cent jump over 2023, when there were 430 fires. Paul said wildland and outdoor fires could be related to an increase in encampment fires, but there is no specific reporting mechanism for these.
He said the general call increase is partially related to the increase in wildland calls.
The number of responses to false alarms dropped by 13 per cent, with 519 calls for the year. The number of false alarms at Carlton Park on 28th Street was significantly less than those in 2022 or 2023.
“Alarms ringing were down a little bit,” Paul said.
According to Paul and the report, the PAFD had a high for alarms ringing in 2022, with 754.
"That was attributed to a particular alarm company coming into Prince Albert and offering alarm systems at almost a fire sale rate, if you'd want to call it that, so there's a lot of uptake on the alarm system with no formal training by the company on how to operate them,” he explained.
“At the same time, the city council updated the fire service bylaw, which allowed for invoicing or a fee for service for responding to multiple false alarms. I think that probably was a bit of a deterrent for some people or an incentive for some people to ensure that they weren't having false alarms. That's why we're seeing, probably, from 2022 until now, a steady decrease in the number of false alarm calls.”
In 2023, there was a significant decrease to 596 false alarms before another decrease in 2024. Paul said these decreases are beneficial because they reduce costs.
"It's a waste of resources for us to be going unnecessarily for something that isn't on fire,” Paul said.
According to the report, vehicle fires increased from 24 to 37 last year, and structure fires also saw an increase, as firefighters fought 106 fires in 2024 compared to 95 the previous year.
City firefighters also respond to the RM of Prince Albert because of a service-sharing agreement between the two municipalities. Paul said the RM numbers are a status quo scenario because the numbers are smaller, and an increase of a few calls can show as a large percentage increase.
“Over the years, I would say that we have averaged in around that 30 to 35 calls and some years more, some years less,” he said.
Not as many details are available in the report to compare to 2023, but there was an increase of 12.5 per cent in calls.
Of the 36 calls in the rural area of the RM of Prince Albert, 10 were structure fires, eight were brush or grass fires, and the rest were a mix of rescue, trash and vehicle fires. Five wellness checks were also completed.
The PAFD also took advantage of the cranes working on the hospital expansion at Victoria Hospital and held a full-day training and pre-planning exercise at the construction site in October last year.
Inspections were down to 1,022 in 2024 from 1,302 in 2023, and all data in that set also saw a decrease.
The PAFD is also down to one fire inspector from the normal complement of two.
“Our previous inspector that have been here for quite a number of years retired in the third quarter of 2024, so we lost his productivity … for the last three months of 2024, which would account for some of that decrease,” Paul said. “The new inspector wasn't put into place. He was hired on Dec. 31, 2024.”
When you become a fire inspector, there is an educational component, and the new inspector has completed one course and is working on the second.
“He is doing some of those duties, but he's still not able to do 100 per cent of those duties,” Paul said. “Right now we're relying on our one Inspector quite heavily at this time and, of course, there's only so much that one person can do.”
