Achi news desk-
The charred trees along Hammonds Plains Road lead straight towards Halifax Fire Station 50.
They are a stark reminder of how close the wildfires came to the fire station and the destruction along the fire’s path, which destroyed dozens of homes and businesses in the Hammonds Plains, NS, area in May 2023 and forced hundreds to flee their homes. .
Station 50 is expected to switch to a 24-hour service after Halifax Regional Council passed its budget earlier this week.
The devastating wildfires and the risk of future wildfires are not the only reason for the need to expand fire services in the area. There is also steady population growth in the community, which is seeing more people moving into the region.
“We base our decisions on data and a number of different factors in our community risk analysis,” said Scott Ramey, assistant fire chief with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Service.
Prior to the approval of the 2024 – 2025 budget, Station 50 in Hammonds Plains operated with four full-time firefighters on site 10.5 hours a day during the week, with a contingent of volunteer firefighters filling in on weekends and evenings .
The surge in population in the area alone justified the jump to a 24/7 service, said Hammonds Plains councillor, Pam Lovelace, who has been pushing for a 24-hour fire service in the area since she was elected to the council in 2020 .
Lovelace says Halifax council should never have had to debate and approve Station 50 to go 24/7 in the first place, because they meet the threshold standards to increase service.
“This should not be a decision that is made by the council and it should not be decided which area gets it,” said Lovelace. “If the community reaches that population threshold, the community should have a 24/7 station.”
That threshold is 100 people per square kilometer and Lovelace says the Hammonds Plains area passed that threshold two years ago.
On Tuesday, Halifax council approved $2 million in the budget to go towards expanding fire services at Station 50, where they will need to hire 15 firefighters to go around the clock.
“They will go through our career firefighter recruiting class that will graduate around December 2024, with a target of having them at the station in early 2025,” Ramey said.
Other factors led to the expansion of the fire service in Hammonds Plains, such as the biggest wildfires on record last summer and the risk of future wildfires which gave additional emphasis to the need for more service.
“The wildfire is something we saw as a big risk and it reinforced the fact that we need to address those risks and have the appropriate staff to deal with it,” he said. Ramey.
Halifax Fire has a comprehensive wildfire strategy Ramey said, pointing out that the fire service has just hired a wildfire mitigation manager to oversee that operation.
Councilor Lovelace says they know the area is still vulnerable to wildfire risk and having a 24/7 service is something the community has been calling for.
“It means firefighters can respond immediately,” Lovelace said. “We need better fire protection.”
