NORTH BATTLEFORD - It was a better year in 2023 as far as fire fighting activities were concerned in North Battleford.
Director of Protective Services and Fire Chief Lindsay Holm presented the report at Monday night's council meeting in North Battleford, with his year-end stats pointing to declines in several areas.
Overall, calls were down from 447 in 2022 to 395 this year, a difference of 13.16 per cent.
“It sort of signifies we had a pretty good drop from last year,” said Holm, who called 2022 “one of our most busy fire years we ever had.”
In particular, structure fires were way down, with only 13 residential structure fires in 2023 compared to 29 in 2022. There were no commercial fires, compared to two in 2022. Vehicle fires also declined from 11 to 8.
There was also a decline in false alarms from 135 to 94. Holm believes people with alarm systems were “a little bit more diligent making their alarm systems which is a very good thing.”
Fire investigations were also down from 31 to 13 — an indication, Holm said, of a “really good fire-safe year” in the city.
Fire prevention inspections and re-inspections were also down, with Holm attributing the latter drop due to better compliance to their initial orders.
Among the few categories showing increases were ground cover, up from 15 to 28; calls for personal assistance up from 22 to 31, and carbon monoxide alarms with no CO detected, up from six to 14.
Holm did not have a final year end report for Community Safety Officers ready for Monday's meeting, but he did say that their CSOs responded to 18,404 calls for service, up 6,998 calls from the year before.
"I'm proud of that group, they've done an absolute amazing job in protecting the city and I think that they're doing just a fantastic job for us," said Holm of the CSOs.
