(Julia Lovett-Squires/battlefordsNOW)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Holm 2025

NB fire chief reflects on 2024; says public education key in fighting future flames

Jan 2, 2025 | 4:40 PM

Now that the new year has begun, North Battleford Fire Chief Linday Holm is taking stock of the past year and has a simple wish for 2025: may there be no more fires.

“2024 was a fairly busy year for both our fire department and the community safety officers that I look after,” he said.

“I think we’re going to be closing out the year fairly close to 950 calls for the fire department,” said the chief and director of protective services, adding the CSOs received roughly 18,745 calls for service.

“All in all, it was a pretty big, busy year for both entities.”

Holm said the past year saw 18 fires in total – 13 of which were structural – and two of which were major conflagrations; Quickfalls Collision Centre in March and the Best Canadian Motor Inn in October.

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“They were extended fires so, those two were pretty trying I would say for the department,” he said of the industrial fires that required all resources, and thanked the Rural Municipality of North Battleford and the Town of Battleford for pitching in their support.

Although it was a busy and taxing year on the department, Holm said they were actually down about 75 calls from the year prior.

“That’s one positive that I can take away from 2024,” he said.

Other positive takeaways from this past year included the 74th annual Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs (SAFC) Conference and the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters’ Association spring school.

“We were able to put on two really good events for the fire service in Saskatchewan and give some pretty good education for the fire chiefs that came down as well as the firefighters for the volunteer fire association,” he said.

According to Holm, they were able to handle all the fires they faced last year, thanks to the additional support for the town and RM departments and as a chief, that is his goal.

“We added that new fire truck the prior year and council has graciously allowed me to order another one,” he said of the truck due to roll into town in 2026.

“We’ll be able to pull one of our aging apparatus out of service and so that is a…good positive as well,” he said.

“We’re fairly blessed as a community to have a council that provides us with the best equipment possible to make sure our citizens are safe.”

Looking ahead to what the new year will bring, Holm said they would like to focus on more public education and involve themselves in the community more.

“Ideally, like I said, I’d like to have no structure fires within our city but that really depends on how firesafe people are being,” he said.

They will also be working on looking at developing specifications for a new aerial truck in preparation for replacing the current vehicle in the coming years.

“Typically, that’s a couple year process when you’re dealing with a piece of equipment that’s that large and that expensive,” he said.

Another area the department wants to focus on is dealing with the amount of times the phone rings.

“As our call volumes increase, it does have a bit of an effect in our availability to get out into the public so, that’s going to be a big challenge, but a major focus,” said Holm, with a hope it’ll create a drop in fire calls.

“We want to try and balance that out a little bit better.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social