A major staffing crunch could be in St. Albert Fire Services' future if the stars align correctly.
That was one of the highlights of the department's long-range plan that was presented to St. Albert city council by chief Ray Richards at council's regular meeting Monday evening.
Nearly one-fifth of the department's members are eligible to retire and, although they likely all wouldn't leave at the same time, it would be a big headache if they did, Richards said.
"Twenty-two per cent of our staff are either 50 years [old] or 50 years-plus and have the years of service that they could retire," Richards said. "The criticality of that is, it's roughly 20 people of our staff, and if they all left at one time, that would be all our officers and all our senior people."
But the department has been working on training new officers for several years, getting a succession plan in place, and that will continue into the future, Richards added.
"Our contract with our union requires there to be internal candidates, so in many respects, we have an opportunity from year one to start training people," he said. "Not all firefighters want to be officers, but they could be."
In three to five years the department could totally replace the group that's eligible to retire, all the way up to platoon chiefs and captains.
"We've got a big task to do to get them ready, get them trained," Richards said.
Fire calls increase
Another part of the report that stood out was the number of fire calls jumping dramatically from 706 in 2008 to 1,340 in 2009. That had to do with Alberta Health Services taking over ambulance service in the province, Richards explained. With only two ambulances at the ready, pumper trucks have been dispatched to help in medical emergencies.
"We do a fire pump assist, a medical assist, and those have been increased since 2008-2009. They're in the neighbourhood of 450 extra calls a year," the chief said.
In the past, the city has set a goal of ambulances reaching medical emergencies within nine minutes 90 per cent of the time, but with the AHS takeover, officials said that's no longer a valid standard.
"While we would still desire to have the nine-in-90 standard, that's a little bit out of our control since Alberta Health Services is controlling a lot of the resources now," said Chris Jardine, general manager of community and protective services.
Richards did not anticipate major capital pressures in the near future, with the next replacement fire truck scheduled for around 2016 and a brand new truck to go along with the development of Fire Station No. 4 in 2018. Fire Station No. 1 is scheduled for reconstruction in 2015, with a view to housing the city's only aerial truck.
