Fire Hall #1 (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

KAMLOOPS FIRE RESCUE

A 42 per cent increase in medical calls gives KFR its busiest year on record

Jan 5, 2023 | 4:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — 2022 was the busiest year on record for Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR). KFR had 10,324 total calls, a 32 per cent increase over 2021. Those calls include everything from structure fires and accidents on the surrounding highways to medical calls and overdoses. With extra calls come extra pressure for the 120 career and 40 paid-on-call firefighters in the community.

The driving factor behind the busiest year ever for KFR was a 42 per cent increase in medical calls over 2021 to more than 6,500. That figure includes 391 overdose calls, a 22 per cent increase. In total, medical calls accounted for 63 per cent of all calls last year. The increase came as B.C. Ambulance has struggled with recruitment across the province.

“A lot of that excess load has been pushed onto the fire service to help, and we are happy to do it for the citizens of Kamloops but it is becoming a big draw on our workload and we need to look at some options of either alleviating that workload or being compensated for doing that work as well,” KFR Chief Ken Uzeloc told CFJC Today.

Chief Uzeloc noted that because of the workload change, new training will be conducted for his firefighters in 2023.

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“We are going to be upgrading our medical response skills. We are going to be going to ’emergency medical responder’ from a basic first responder level which will give us the scope of practice to do a little bit more,” said Uzeloc. “When we are on scene with patients, to more calls, with longer periods, we are actually able to do more for them than just sit and wait for an ambulance.”

Training in general has been a challenge for KFR. Due to the increase in calls and the need for about 10 new firefighters to join the ranks, training has been occurring on days off, meaning overtime pay.

Uzeloc only took over the position as chief in Kamloops last summer after being hired out of Calgary.

“It has been a lot of learning these first few months, of how we do things here, why we do things a certain way here. Starting to see the limitations, both geography-wise of the support we have and resource-wise. We will be looking to hopefully add to those resources this year,” added Uzeloc.

KFR will be working towards creating a new 10-year plan in 2023 which, among other things, will look at the need of creating a full-time station in Dallas.

“This year is about really getting a good look at the department, doing a real thorough risk assessment of the community, looking at what our service levels should be here with Kamloops. And then producing a 10-year master plan for council so they can see where we want to go, what the needs are, and when we need them so we can spread that out over that 10-year period,” said Uzeloc.

Uzeloc noted that, with the addition of some new high-rise builds going up in Kamloops, KFR will also need to invest in new equipment to help keep the community safe.