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By Julia Lovett-Squires

Fire Stats

NBFD on track to hit 15 fires again this year

Jul 8, 2024 | 4:20 PM

The North Battleford Fire Department is once again on pace to hit 15 fires this year in the city.

“From 2019 to 2023, we’ve seen 102 fires, so that works out to about 20 fires a year,” said Lindsay Holm, fire chief.

“That is probably up a little bit from quite a few years ago, like I’d say we were probably in the ballpark of 13 to 15 in a year.”

Holm explained to get a more representative number, he removed the highest and lowest and it worked out to roughly 18 fires in a year.

This year, Holm said if things hold true, the community will once again hit those numbers, though he admitted it was hard to predict.

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“Pretty much impossible to predict but that’s kind of where we’re at over the last five years.”

According to the June 2024 fire statistics, which are set to be presented to city council during a special meeting on Monday, July 8, so far this year, there have been eight residential fires.

“It really is all encompassing because every time we do a have a fire, we always will do an investigation as to find out the cause and origin of those fires,” he said.

“It will help with our prevention activities and things to try and focus on.”

According to statistics sent by the City of North Battleford, 2019 and 2023 had the least with 13 and 2022 had the most at 31.

According to Holm, although there are codes for different types of fires, such as residential and industrial, separating between the different types of occupancy.

“Each one would have a different use so, we look at the building and the use of the building and just also try and see if there’s any trends that are happening within the different types of occupancies as well,” he said.

“We will add in something into our report based on like if it was a mechanical failure that we feel caused the fire – that will be documented in our report but it’s not something we have a specific category for.”

Predicting fires for any given month isn’t possible but Holm said sometimes they will see some trends – especially in the winter.

“We might have a few fires that are related to either heating equipment or you know, a wood stove or something like that,” Holm said.

“Typically, with that you won’t see a lot of differences in the months and every month is kind of like a crapshoot, it’s just going to depend on how many fires you have in that particular month.”

One of the areas that has been trending over the last 25 years is how fires burn.

“There’s modern fires versus a legacy fire is what we would term them in the fire industry and what we’re finding is that fires are growing bigger quicker,” he said.

“It’s mainly due to the materials that are used in the construction of buildings nowadays as well as the furnishings in the homes.”

The fire chief said most furniture isn’t made out of solid wood anymore, but rather glue laminated material.

“When they start on fire, they have a higher heat release rate than regular solid wood does,” he said.

In the past, they used to see a flashover develop in a building at around 20 minutes. Now, they’re seeing it in five to 10 minutes.

“They are getting quite a bit hotter fast,” he said, noting it’s imperative people get out as fast as they can and not to go back in.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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