Atlantic Canadian firefighters warn they’re not equipped for high-rise emergencies

Firefighters in Atlantic Canada say they’re not equipped to handle emergencies at high-rises.

As high-rise towers continue to reshape skylines across Atlantic Canada, firefighters in the region say they’re neither properly equipped nor staffed to respond safely when emergencies strike above the seventh floor.

“Our resources that we currently have are being overtaxed,” said Glenn Miller, president of the Atlantic Provinces Professional Firefighters Association. “Call volumes are increasing for all the fire services across eastern Canada.”

Miller points to the region’s opioid and housing crises as major factors driving that surge — but says the rise in vertical development has added a new layer of concern.

“More recently, across the major cities in the Atlantic provinces, we’re seeing exponential growth with construction and high-rises,” he said.

“As we develop these high-rise structures, the manpower required to mitigate an emergency in them needs to rise exponentially. And unfortunately, we haven’t been doing that, so it jeopardizes both public safety and firefighter safety.”

‘There’s just not enough resources’

Halifax Deputy Fire Chief David Meldrum says the national standard for a high-rise fire response is 43 firefighters — a number the department struggles to meet even with 22 round-the-clock stations.

“For instance, if we had a fire in a high-rise in the day on the peninsula of Halifax … it would take us eight or nine of those stations to assemble the 43 firefighters,” he said.

And even with the department’s 100-foot aerial ladder trucks, the reach is limited.

“They can reach about five to seven storeys,” Meldrum said. “Beyond that, all firefighting and rescue in high-rises is done from inside the building.”

That means crews must climb floor after floor — in full gear, carrying tools, hoses, and air tanks — before they can even begin battling a fire or evacuating residents.

“You’re talking 34 storeys, you’re looking at a 10-minute climb to get to the fire floor,” said Joe Triff, president of the Halifax Professional Fire Fighters Association. “And that’s all time that that fire can grow.”

Triff said Halifax now sees high-rises in areas far beyond downtown — from Bedford and Sackville to the rapidly-growing Larry Uteck area.

“We haven’t kept pace with the resources,” he said. “We’re sending the same number of firefighters to a potentially 40-storey high-rise building that we would send to your home. There’s just not enough resources to manage that situation.”

Meldrum said Halifax’s model relies on escalating alarm levels — dispatching more crews as the severity of an incident becomes clearer.

“We’ll send an alarm level one to start off … but they can call for more alarms,” he said. “Alarm level two gives them two more engines and an aerial … alarm level three adds another two engines and aerial. This is how our people respond to what they see.”

But every added alarm pulls more resources from across the municipality.

“Where’s our backup coming from? Is it available? Or are they sending neighbouring stations?” said Triff.

Not just a Halifax issue

The staffing shortfall stretches across the region.

Miller said Moncton, N.B., now has more high-rise buildings — but still sends single-engine responses to them.

“That is not enough to mitigate an emergency when it happens,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for incidents to deplete their resources in the whole city to respond to an incident … then they’re put in a position of having to require mutual aid from either the City of Dieppe or the Town of Riverview.”

Triff said Halifax’s fire management has focused on infrastructure and accreditation — while failing to address front-line needs.

“We’ve seen investment in a new headquarters campus in Hammonds Plains … but we haven’t seen investment in getting four people on our ladder trucks,” he said. “Those trucks are more and more frequently going first into these incidents.”

In some cases, he said, the first responding truck has just two firefighters on board.

“It’s just not enough to effectively do our job,” Triff said. “We really need to see those units staffed with four.”

He added that staffing levels in Halifax’s urban fire stations have dropped since the 1990s — even as high-rise development accelerates.

“We haven’t reinvested in the downtown to deal with incidents in a multi-storey high-rise building,” he said. “As tragic as a single-family home fire can be, an incident in a high-rise is going to be far worse.”

Miller agrees that cities across the region are growing faster than their fire departments.

“It appears the population growth is going to happen regardless,” he said. “What we’re challenged by is the fact that they’re not keeping municipal resources up with those growths and then we’re playing catch-up.”

He urged residents to take a closer look at the emergency services in their communities.

“I just think it’s important that the public is aware that the services they may think they have … they need to ask questions to make sure they’re actually receiving the service they think they’re getting,” he said.

Triff said it’s a message Halifax council needs to hear, too.

“In all of HRM, we have roughly 102 firefighters on duty in the day — and that’s from Sambro to Sheet Harbour,” he said. “Downtown, we would not get 43 firefighters in the allotted amount of time.”

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