There is something to be said for consistency. And consistent is how Dauphin fire chief Cam Abrey described the past year for his department in a rundown of 2023 operations for city councillors at their regular meeting, Feb. 26.
In fact things were so consistent that, at 236, the department responded to the same number of calls in 2023 as it did in 2022.
“Which, we believe, is the first time that’s ever happened in the history of the department, that it’s been consecutive numbers from year to year,” Abrey said, adding the two years boast the highest number of calls when looking back over the last decade.
False alarm calls continue to be the largest category by volume at 38 per cent of all calls. In 2023, the number rose to 89 over the 75 false alarms in 2022.
Abrey said 47 properties were issued a first offence notice under provisions of a City bylaw, with 14 receiving a second notice and eight receiving penalties for a third offence.
“That’s where the penalties start to kick in. Then the fines are issued by the City of Dauphin to the property owner,” he said, adding seven property owners received a penalty notice for a fourth offence, four got a fifth notice and one received a sixth penalty notice.
Motor vehicle collisions are the second highest category by volume with 41 responses accounting for 17 per cent of all calls.
Of those 41, 26 of the calls were eligible for claims under Manitoba Public Insurance guidelines, Abrey said and totalled $32,107.21.
“Now we just wait and see how much they actually pay back because sometimes they pay the full claim, sometimes they dispute the full claim, sometimes they reject the claim altogether,” Abrey said, adding determining factors include whether a driver is properly insured or whether they decide not to open a claim with MPI. “In that case, when there’s no claim filed, we don’t get paid either.”
In other categories, kitchen fires accounted for 11 per cent of department activity. Outdoor fires and structure fires each came in at eight per cent, carbon monoxide alarms at four per cent and vehicle fires at three per cent.
Abrey added the department changed its record keeping by pulling EMS lift assists - which involves helping to move larger patients - out of the catchall category of “other.”
“Our city manager Sharla (Griffiths) had emailed prior to the AMM conference and asked is this an issue in Dauphin? At that time I said, ‘no it’s not’ and then all of a sudden our calls exploded for lift assist following that email,” Abrey said, adding there were 16 such calls in 2023 and just 13 total from 2020 to 2022. “Those 16 totaled 251 personnel hours, or an average of 15.5 people responding to the station every time we’re paged out. Now the issue is that when EMS request assistance they ask for four members to show up, but they’re paging out every single member of the department.”
Abrey said there is getting to be more and more such calls across the province as emergency services agencies of all kinds, including EMS, are short staffed.
“That assistance is a service to our ratepayers,” he said, adding the Manitoba Association of Fire Chiefs and the Office of the Fire Commissioner talking to Shared Health about the issue. “Setting up something similar to what MPI does where they pay for our response.”
In total, firefighters dedicated 4,398 hours to the 236 calls with 18 per cent, or 792 hours spent responding in the RM of Dauphin and 3,606 hours worked in the city. One per cent, 30 hours was spent assisting neighbouring departments through the mutual aid system.
Firefighters also dedicated 2,286 hours to regular Wednesday evening training in addition to taking part in numerous weekend training opportunities offered through the Manitoba Emergency Services College.
Some of those opportunities include Firefighting Level I and II classes for members of the mutual aid district along with Incident Command System 200, Vehicle Extrication, Pump Basics, Emergency Vehicle Driving, Pumps Advanced, Grain Rescue, Advanced Fire Dynamics, Occupational Hygiene and Electric Vehicle Training.
With 30 members currently, Abrey said the department is continuing its recruitment efforts, attracting members through a number of different means.
“I’m happy to report that we’ve also resurrected our cadet program with the high school. So we currently have two cadets that are between the ages of 16 and 17 that have been coming out to our training,” he said. “This is something that kind of fizzled during COVID, but we’re glad to see that it’s being fired up again and we have some new interest in that.”
Finally, Abrey told councillors the Firefighters’ Association will be fund-raising in March for Muscular Dystrophy Canada, it’s charity of choice.
“MD has been the firefighters’ charity of choice since 1954, but I guess Dauphin got involved in 1976,” Abrey said. “Since that time it’s over $100,000 that our department has raised for muscular dystrophy.”
On behalf of Dauphin residents, mayor David Bosiak, extended appreciation for the department and its commitment to the safety of everyone in the community.
“I think we have probably one of the best rural fire departments anywhere and a lot of that relates to leadership, so keep leading,” Bosiak said. “We truly appreciate everything that your members do . . . the city truly supports what you’re doing and keep doing it.”
