These days, when an emergency call comes in to the fire department, it is more likely to send Squamish firefighters rushing to a car accident than it is to a fire.
In 2015, Squamish Fire Rescue took 107 vehicle accident calls and 69 fire calls, Squamish Fire Chief Bill Stoner told The Squamish Chief.
“And that is everything from structure fires to wild land fires, boat fires,” he said.
“What we are seeing is our fires are staying pretty standard, the numbers are staying the same, but as the community grows our other calls are growing.”
As a result of the shift, firefighters get more training focused on attending vehicle crashes, Stoner added.
The Squamish department currently has 50 volunteer firefighters and nine career staff.
Firefighters’ main role when called to accidents is to be on hand incase someone needs to be extricated from a vehicle, Stoner explained, though members will help direct traffic and perform other duties while on the scene.
Drivers’ speed is a contributor to many of the highway crashes firefighters attend.
“I am not an RCMP officer, but we all drive that highway, we all see that. If the conditions get worse and we slow down, there’s less of a chance of an accident,” Stoner said.
Firefighters were also called to 125 fire alarms that didn’t turn out to be fires, Stoner added. Overall, the department was called out to about 726 various incidents in 2015.
But responding to calls is just a part of what firefighters do on a day-to-day basis, Stoner stressed.
“We’ve got 60 firefighters and we have to train them in a number of disciplines… that takes a lot of time,” he explained, adding equipment maintenance is another aspect of the job the public may not be well aware of.
“We really are spending a great deal of time now trying to prevent fires or harm before it happens,” he said. “That’s where we are trying to put a lot of our emphasis.”
In 2015, Squamish Fire Rescue’s Kyle Derksen talked to about 1,300 students about fire and life safety.
The department also does fire inspections of local businesses – about 500 in 2015.
Fires are still a concern, of course, Stoner said.
Starting in 2017 the department wants to focus on getting more smoke detectors in Squamish homes.
“Fires, once they get going today, are quite a bit hotter and they will move faster because of today’s fuels, which are plastics,” Stoner explained. “And plastics are just really just hydro-carbon based.”
Most modern detectors installed in houses last 10 years, he said, but sometimes people dismantle them, rendering them useless.
“It goes off once and someone unplugs it,” he said. “They have to be changed out every so often and they have to be tested and they have to be plugged in to work.”
In terms of wild fires, the department is going to look at creating a community wildfire protection plan, which is hopefully going to be a broader plan that will reduce concern every dry summer, Stoner said. Possibly in the budget for 2017 is also a new ladder truck. For insurance reasons, the ladder truck has to be replaced every 20 years.
