General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[Coke6pk]

And wasn't there one on Ottawa (close to King) at one point, right beside Town Bowl?

I am assuming it was this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4427324,...384!8i8192

As for merging EMS and Fire, I've heard stories this is not a good arrangement. Conflicts with the different levels of government make building issues / sharing problematic. Additionally, put a group that is expected to be out driving around the majority of a shift mixing with a group that is sleeping and/or cooking chili (when they are not doing the medical calls that you are doing at the same time), also creates conflict.

Coke

[tomh009]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

[Coke6pk]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

The question is why have we not changed them.  Local Police were all municipal until 1973.  Local transit was municipal until 2000.  These were not forced by legislation.  There have been talks of going regional with fire (It makes so much sense, but I am assuming the huge city budgets allotted to them are part of the reason why change is scary)

Coke

[ijmorlan]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

The question is why have we not changed them.  Local Police were all municipal until 1973.  Local transit was municipal until 2000.  These were not forced by legislation.  There have been talks of going regional with fire (It makes so much sense, but I am assuming the huge city budgets allotted to them are part of the reason why change is scary)

Coke

I think moving Fire to the Regional level makes a lot of sense. Then all the emergency services would be handled at the same level.

Additionally, as someone else pointed out, I don’t think the capacity problem for Fire is actual fires; they do a lot of medical calls. But how can it make sense to send a fire truck for a medical call rather than an ambulance? It’s a bigger vehicle with more people. Of course it makes sense for Fire to be able to step in when EMS happens to be busy, but in terms of capacity planning, Fire should be planned only for fire, while EMS should be planned to cover medical calls. This is easier if both are managed by the same government, in this case the Regional government.

Probably we would merge the existing fire services to a new Regional service with no expansion, or maybe even a small decrease, and target increases to EMS. But of course the Region would study the question carefully before making an actual decision.

[neonjoe]

I believe a lot of the hesitancy about bringing fire to the Regional Level is that some of the townships have volunteer fire departments within their communities. A regional level dept may cause these to now become full time FD with equal compensation to the firefighters in the cities. Unless they can prorate or only amalgamate the departments of KWC

[danbrotherston]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

Libraries are a city responsibility. The region ALSO runs a library program, but does so for the townships where there are no local libraries.

As for fire, that's an interesting question. FWIW, the townships run a fire program that is significantly different from our programs, it's volunteer, non-full-time. That is the kind of differentiation that tends to get lost in amalgamation.

I do know in the townships fire responds to medical and collisions because they arrive much earlier than ambulances. FWIW, I agree, we should improve paramedic services, instead of fire.

[tomh009]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

Libraries are a city responsibility. The region ALSO runs a library program, but does so for the townships where there are no local libraries.

As for fire, that's an interesting question. FWIW, the townships run a fire program that is significantly different from our programs, it's volunteer, non-full-time. That is the kind of differentiation that tends to get lost in amalgamation.

If libraries are run differently in the townships, and transit is run differently in the townships, surely we could run fire services differently in the townships as well.

[KevinL]

Yeah, let's upload fire response to the Region and let them run it at two levels - urban and rural. That can be integrated with EMS and police (and possibly other emergency response) to make one straightforward solution.

[danbrotherston]

Libraries are a city responsibility. The region ALSO runs a library program, but does so for the townships where there are no local libraries.

As for fire, that's an interesting question. FWIW, the townships run a fire program that is significantly different from our programs, it's volunteer, non-full-time. That is the kind of differentiation that tends to get lost in amalgamation.

If libraries are run differently in the townships, and transit is run differently in the townships, surely we could run fire services differently in the townships as well.

Maybe, but the fact that it must be run differently means there's likely little savings to be had, and while it might be possible to run things differently, it's also something that could instead get lost.

[dtkvictim]

I'd like to see a breakdown of the calls that they responded to. Based on my (earlier) reading, as well as anecdotal observations, a lot of the calls the fire department responds to are medical only, and there is little need for a giant fire truck to be sent out. The number of actual fires has been on a rather steady decline for a very long time.

Maybe more of those medical calls could be redirected to paramedics, and, if necessary, we could add another paramedic crew or two?

Does data like this ever get published? I certainly agree that if the increase in demand is due to medical calls, increase medical capacity.

I'm quite interested in the data though, as anecdotally it's seemed to skew towards fire. I've come across two (potential) overdoses here, one of which all 3 emergency services showed up for. I've personally had to deal with the fire department for fires 4 times, 3 of which were "irregular" (i.e. set by homeless or mentally unwell people). I've also watched the fire department respond to another handful of fires that didn't directly pertain to me, some regular, some irregular. That said, the fire department certainly responds to more medical calls than just overdoses, and I'm sure the majority of overdoses are not very public compared to fires.

I guess my point though is if overdoses are a driver of increased medical calls, then I can definitely see fire calls increasing to. As my personal experience: drugs, mental illness, and fires seem to have a not insignificant correlation.

[tomh009]

I'd like to see a breakdown of the calls that they responded to. Based on my (earlier) reading, as well as anecdotal observations, a lot of the calls the fire department responds to are medical only, and there is little need for a giant fire truck to be sent out. The number of actual fires has been on a rather steady decline for a very long time.

Maybe more of those medical calls could be redirected to paramedics, and, if necessary, we could add another paramedic crew or two?

Does data like this ever get published? I certainly agree that if the increase in demand is due to medical calls, increase medical capacity.

I'm quite interested in the data though, as anecdotally it's seemed to skew towards fire. I've come across two (potential) overdoses here, one of which all 3 emergency services showed up for. I've personally had to deal with the fire department for fires 4 times, 3 of which were "irregular" (i.e. set by homeless or mentally unwell people). I've also watched the fire department respond to another handful of fires that didn't directly pertain to me, some regular, some irregular. That said, the fire department certainly responds to more medical calls than just overdoses, and I'm sure the majority of overdoses are not very public compared to fires.

Anecdotes are dangerous. Even my personal anecdotes.

Here are some national statistics, from 2005 to 2014: a drop of 25% in the number of fires, in spite of a 10% increase in population.
http://nfidcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/...o-2014.pdf

Ontario data, from 2010 to 2019: 10% drop in fires, in spite of a 10% increase in population:
https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/...fires.html

Notably most Ontario fire departments are "composite" with both full-time and volunteer firefighters:
https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/...ts_fd.html

[Coke6pk]

Additionally, as someone else pointed out, I don’t think the capacity problem for Fire is actual fires; they do a lot of medical calls. But how can it make sense to send a fire truck for a medical call rather than an ambulance? It’s a bigger vehicle with more people. Of course it makes sense for Fire to be able to step in when EMS happens to be busy, but in terms of capacity planning, Fire should be planned only for fire, while EMS should be planned to cover medical calls. This is easier if both are managed by the same government, in this case the Regional government.

Fire is pushing hard to do more medical calls than they do already. They are trying to justify their positions, as true fire calls are shrinking. Tiered response is seen as a way of keeping them busy. Again, this is why EMS have issues with the shared responsibility. Paramedics get paid crap (compared to Fire), and the Hero's in the red truck are trying to replace them.

If they were moved to a Regional system, I could see cutbacks as we don't need to "double up" the medical response (Or the paramedics are part of the fire service like in most US counties -- at least the ones that aren't privatized there).

I am in agreement that they should be regional, not city run.... but there are a lot of (non-frontline) staff [and unions] that would fight hard against this.

Coke

[dtkvictim]

Anecdotes are dangerous. Even my personal anecdotes.

Here are some national statistics, from 2005 to 2014: a drop of 25% in the number of fires, in spite of a 10% increase in population.
http://nfidcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/...o-2014.pdf

Ontario data, from 2010 to 2019: 10% drop in fires, in spite of a 10% increase in population:
https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/...fires.html

Notably most Ontario fire departments are "composite" with both full-time and volunteer firefighters:
https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/...ts_fd.html

Of course, I always preface my anecdotes as such as acknowledgment that it shouldn't be taken seriously. I just have fun speculating in the absence of statistics. The article did highlight downtown though, where the factors I outlined might make it an outlier from the general trends of Ontario and Canada. Though I know realistically (and especially with Coke's insight) that's probably not the case.

At the end of the day I just want my emergency services operating in whichever way is most efficient, as I seem to have to deal with all of them an excessive amount living downtown.

[jeffster]

Now, is there any particular reason why fire services have to be a city responsibility rather than regional, the way police and EMS are (not to mention transit, libraries and public health)?

Good question, but I can think of some reasons. For example, the way cities 'build' themselves often determines the amount of fire departments. A smaller compact city with equal populations means different amount of fire departments. Waterloo allegedly (it's not actually 140,000+, for like 110,000 at the most) has a similar population to Cambridge, but has 4 departments vs Cambridge' 6. Kitchener has 7 (and proposed 8th). Of the 3 cities, Kitchener has the least amount of stations for its size, so most likely more savings for the taxpayer. Fire Departments tend to be governed more by geography and density of the city vs population. If FD's were to become regional, then the region may have more of a say how cities build themselves. Re-arranging all the fire departments, like what Kitchener did, likely wouldn't fly at the regional level.

Compared to the police department(s), the amount of police officers (and cars) is more inline with population than area. Cruisers are always on the job, running around the cities -- so merging them didn't change much in terms of services, but there would have been savings when it comes to administration. Same applies to EMS, whenever the merger happened, and perhaps even back then there may have been agreed overlap (I believe EMS was always regional, but I might be wrong).

As far as I know, library's are still city run. Good reason for this, as different cities have different needs and means. And I think you can apply the same rules when it comes to pools, rinks (arena's) and community centres. Places like Kitchener and Cambridge (and outside of here, Toronto) like to have several different spots for these taxpayer facilities. Waterloo tends to follow the example of Mississauga, and will have entire facilities in one place. Some cities (like Kitchener) prioritize smaller facilities, but more of them, so they're available to more neighbourhoods, while places like Waterloo prefer a much smaller number of larger facilities.

As for transit, IIRC, there was always that desire to have 1 transit system for the region, but I believe there were some roadblocks with Cambridge wanting to have their own system only, and also intercity transit (like Greyhound) didn't want the competition.

I think another reason why FD's are separated is because of pride within and outside of each FD. This sort of pride doesn't exist as much in say, the police department. Nor in EMS.

As for function of each department, it might be quite a bit different, as well as wages. I'd guess it would go to the highest level, and not lowest.

Lastly, we'd need to consider if this is going to be a regional job, like EMS and PD, then the small departments outside the cities need to be equipped and staffed in a similar fashion. While personally I don't disagree with that idea, it would be very expensive.

[nms]

Anecdotally, the fire departments typically reach an emergency call first.  Unlike paramedics, the fire department is less likely to be tied up at a hospital waiting to offload a patient.  Of the three EMS services, firefighters are likely the most versatile in terms of having enough first aid training that they can administer first responder level first aid and also a certain degree of the police officer's "first on site duties".  I'm not sure that the other two services would be able to cover the fire services "first on site duties".  I'm thinking in particular of car accidents (making the site secure from fire or explosion risk) nor of fires.

I think part of the problem with the fire service is that anywhere the truck goes, the full crew has to go with it just in case the truck is needed at a major scene.  Precious time can't be lost going back to the station to collect the rest of the crew.

I'm sure the every firefighter in the truck has an important role to play in most situations.  I wonder if the Cities would consider adding a vanguard paramedic level vehicle that could attend to most of the medical calls, while leaving the rest of the crew back at the station.  Should the vanguard crew be needed wherever the big truck ends up, they could immediately travel to the next site without having to go back to the station. The crews could rotate duties on the vanguard vehicle to keep everyone fresh.

I guess it ultimately boils down to this: which service are you prepared to be without if they are covering another service that is being overwhelmed? If the fire service level is reduced while the paramedic service is increased, what happens if there is more than one "firefighter" call that the reduced fire service can't respond to?


On a related note, there was a job posting for a probationary fire fighter with the City of Waterloo earlier this year.  The job duties are listed below.  The first five are the core fire fighting/rescue duties.  The others would likely be part of every EMS job description. The duties included:

• Perform fire suppression duties to extinguish and/or prevent fires to save life and property under emergency conditions
  
  
• Aid and provide emergency medical response,  including performing rescue/extrication operations to prevent loss of life or further injury
  
  
• Operate all equipment including pumps, hoses, manual ladders, mechanical ladders, generators, and automobile extrication equipment
  
  
• Secure the emergency scene for the safety of the public and other firefighters
  
  
• Drive and operate any WFR vehicles in accordance with policy and the Highway Traffic Act
  
  
• Support the work team and allied agencies to maintain public safety
  
  
• Perform station, equipment and vehicle maintenance
  
  
• Comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act and other relevant legislation
  
  
• Comply with departmental policies, guidelines, and departmental rules and regulations
  
  
• Provide excellent customer service as well as being leaders in public fire safety education.  Support fire prevention efforts by conducting demonstrations, public education,  inspections and investigations
  
  
• Participate in training exercises and courses to continuously increase knowledge and skills to remain current
  
  
• Must be psychologically and physically prepared to respond to emergencies of any kind