Despite concerns about the number of non-fire emergency calls attended by Colwood Fire Rescue, Chief Bryan Erwin says there is no call for alarm; the department has got the community covered.
In 2023, 45 per cent of Colwood Fire’s call-outs were for time-critical medical emergencies the ambulance service, operated by BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS), was unable to immediately respond to.
For 2024, up to Aug. 31, Colwood attended 337 medical emergency incidents, 48 per cent of the total number of call-outs for the year so far.
At a Colwood council meeting in August, Mayor Doug Kobayashi said he was ‘staggered’ by the statistics, questioning if the city should “start pushing back” on the support they offer to the ambulance service.
"Some other municipalities in B.C. are pushing back on it and are sending the province a bill,” said Kobayashi, who added the cost implications are “worthy of discussion” as the city is expected to cover the cost of sending its fire crew to these emergency calls.
Chief Erwin told the mayor he was “open to change” and, if instructed by the city, would build a service model reflecting their wishes.
Taking a cautious approach to the matter, Coun. Cynthia Day warned against any hasty decisions that might impact the safety of the community.
“We can argue about who has to pay…while we’re having that argument it’s our citizens who are being put at risk,” said Day. “The dollars and cents matter...but we still need to remember that is part of keeping our community safe.”
Speaking to Goldstream News Gazette, the fire chief explained Colwood has been a member of the first responder program for nearly three decades. The program is an agreement with BCEHS who will notify first responders, such as Colwood Fire, in the event of a time-critical emergency. Colwood Fire is one of 275 first responder agencies across B.C. with agreements in place with BCEHS.
“We've been involved in [the program] because life safety is really our priority as a fire service,” said Erwin. “We want to help where we can. This is one way we can effectively provide a high level of service for our community, by continuing to help the ambulance service.”
As Colwood is a small fire department with limited resources, the fire chief says any call can impact their capacity.
"We are committed to that incident and it takes away the potential for other areas," he said.
But with the mutual-aid agreement in place with neighbouring fire departments in Langford and View Royal, Erwin is confident of the support they can offer in the event of a fire emergency.
“We respond as a collective unit,” said Erwin. "We have things in play that will trigger and dispatch neighbouring jurisdictions to assist with fire response. And that ensures we have the appropriate number of resources on scene and it provides the ability to have a bit of capacity depth.”
Ultimately, Erwin says the number of emergencies Colwood is attending, both fire and medical, is “manageable”, explaining the service is continually evaluating and planning for how it can meet demand.
“Fire suppression and fire protection is our primary business and that's really where we want to look at making sure that we can maintain it," said Erwin. "When we can assist B.C. ambulance, that's what we do, we'll assist them whenever possible."
“Ultimately, as an agency assisting B.C. ambulance, if we are tied up and we can't go, we're simply just delayed. But if it's fire-related, we have those thresholds in place to ensure we still have a response coming regardless.”
