Some fire stations may go up in smoke as part of the 2010 city budget trimming process.
Ward 5 Coun. Ron Dupuis brought up the idea of reducing the number of fire stations at a finance committee meeting on Oct. 26, saying it is time for the city to revisit some tough questions.
“We're not experts when it comes to fire services and so on, but I was part of the (2004) master fire plan and the creation of it. We had long, serious discussions about the positioning of larger stations in different areas of the city. It's to the point now where we really have to look at it, because we are spending a significant amount of money. We've got to ask ourselves is it worth it and where do we draw the line?”
Greater Sudbury fire chief Marc Leduc said at this point, he is unsure whether closing stations is a realistic option.
“It's a complex question. There are a lot of factors that relate to that (decision).”
As far as how cutting stations would affect service, it would depend on what alternatives are developed to provide services to the areas which would lose their stations, according to Leduc.
“It depends on what type of response, whether it's a volunteer response or a career response. Fire stations that have a career response (are) quicker to respond when it comes to leaving the station.”
The fire chief said “whichever benchmark is set by the community,” is what the firefighters will strive for.
“(If) council says they want a four-minute response time in an urban area, for example, (and for us) to reach 90 per cent of the people, 90 per cent of the time, (then) that's what we have strive for by doing a station location study that will show how many stations we'll need to acquire that.”
Fire services has a performance measure called the 10-in-10, brought in by the Ontario fire marshal, which sets the bar for municipalities to provide 10 firefighters on scene within 10 minutes of a fire call, according to Leduc.
“That is a very substantial standard,” Leduc said. “Many rural communities will not meet that standard. In fact, some urban areas are just meeting it.”
The fire chief said it will be difficult to cut stations in rural areas and still meet response times.
“The difficulty in the rural areas is we're so spread apart, (so) there's not a lot of opportunity. If you remove one station and then you're significantly increasing response time,” he said.
“We have to look at the second station responding as well. If you're going to get into interior fire-and-rescue, we should have at least two pumpers on scene and other apparatus. That requires a second station to respond. Now if that other station is too far away, then we wouldn't be able to safely do interior firefighting.”
An option to reduce spending, according to Leduc, is to reduce stations and fire vehicles, and increase the amount of career firefighters to cover the gap.
“You could reduce costs by having less capital and maintaining less capital by having less fire stations and less (fire vehicles)... We'd be reducing capital costs and increasing operating costs... We're always looking at options. In some areas, once we've consulted the public, there may be reductions in some areas of the city.”
The reductions would come in time to be counted towards reducing a possible deficit in the 2010 city budget, which the city is still deliberating on, according to Leduc.
This year's fire services budget carries a 2.9 per cent increase. Leduc said his department has been thorough in examining spending in their budget and prioritizing.
“We've maintained an inflationary budget. So, aside from inflation, there is no increase to the fire budget this year.”
