Toronto Fire Service Cuts. Life or Property?

Back before Crackgate, and the shift to distance themselves from Mayor Ford, Toronto Council supported his "fiscal irresponsibility" agenda, voting to cut Fire Services.

Only now, 12 months after 2013 Toronto Fire Service budget cuts are area residents learning the full impact of the cuts. Fire Stations are losing apparatus (fire trucks) and staff; the following equipment is being removed due to 2013 cuts:

• Pumper 424 (426 Runnymede Road)
• Pumper 215 (5318 Lawrence Ave. East)
• Aerial 324 (840 Gerrard Street East)

The primary concern of eliminating Fire Trucks is the resultant increase in emergency response times. Seconds count, both in terms of increased property damage and increased risk to human life. In the case of the elimination of Pumper 215, the increased response times represent too many seconds, too much risk for area residents.

This year the Budget Committee is once again approving more long term Fire Service cuts for the 2014 Budget... except perhaps for their own wards.

One of the perks of being a member of Ford's hand picked Budget Committee is the ability to influence budget decisions in your favour. Michelle Berardinetti was able to pass a motion to obtain $1.311 million in 2014 and an incremental $1.185 million for 2015 for a new pumper for the new Station "D" being built in her ward at Midland and Eglinton, rather than accepting the reallocation of an existing a pumper from Fire Station 224. 

The optic's of Michelle Berardinetti's action is not of an altruistic act, but rather one of cynical electioneering, since she wasn't concerned with also restoring funding that would allow pumper 215 to remain at Station 215. Nor was she concerned about aerial 324 or pumper 424.

Scarborough residents should not be surprised that one of our Fire Stations has been included on the list of cuts. Scarborough has been subjected to ongoing fiscal inequity since amalgamation. Nor should we be surprised that the cut comes to the geographic area furthest from Downtown Toronto whose Councillor who is arguably one of the worst at constituent communications and who until just recently hadn’t heard of social media.

Area residents should however be surprised that the Toronto Fire Service has chosen to eliminate a Pumper truck from the most geographically isolated and difficult to access regions in Toronto! Eliminating Pumper 215 will require a second truck to respond to all calls from outside the Port Union area leading to unacceptably long response times. The following map illustrates why requiring a second truck to respond via only 3 community access points is going to be problematic:

Much of Ward 44 lies isolated between the Highland Creek and Rouge River Valleys; the Kingston Road Expressway and 401 are physical barriers to north. Port Union Road access is very problematic during rush hours due to heavy commuter traffic to and from the Rouge Hill GoTrain station.

Here’s another view showing just how few roads come into the area for people who don’t live here and fight this reality daily.

As a result of the elimination of Pumper 215 from the Fire Station at 5318 Lawrence Avenue East, emergency response times in the area will increase significantly. Fire Chief Jim Sales admits that it will now take an average of 7 minutes for the first truck to respond to an emergency, an increase of one minute and forty five seconds, and that it will take an average of nine minutes and twenty three seconds for a second unit to respond, an increase of two minutes and twenty one seconds!

However, Chief Sales’ projections represent only the average response time, not the worst case response time due to factors such as distance from the second station, traffic congestion, especially at the Highland Creek Overpass and on Port Union Road. Nor do Chief Sales’ projections take into account the impact of future development, increased density, and increased gridlock. All of which will result in increased response times.

Seconds count, both in terms of increased property damage and increased risk to human life.

What’s of greater importance and concern, property, or lives? There are those people who will argue, perhaps rightly, that it’s the significantly increased property damage that will result from longer response times that is of greater importance. Those same people will tell you that arguing against Fire Service cuts using the argument of increased risk to lives is an emotional argument that’s on par with Ford Nation’s “Gravy Train” refrain. I don’t concur.

Their argument does not change the fact that people will be at greater risk to injury and death due to longer response times. Possible death and injury due to fire is an emotional issue, so much so that people continually risk their lives in an emergency trying to save the lives of others.

Some people may also argue that the increased risk to human safety is acceptable, given the residential nature of the community, they question “how likely is it that the area will experience more than a single family dwelling fire.” However, that question invariably comes only from those unfamiliar with the Coronation Industrial Park in the corner of our geographic area, just as those people are invariably unaware that a major rail corridor transits our region in the south and serves this industrial area.

Scarborough residents still recall the major chemical fire that occurred in 2000 at the USE Hickson plant located near Manse Road and Coronation Drive. The fire, described as an ‘inferno’ sent “thick, black and possibly toxic smoke billowing out of the factory” which could be seen as far away as the U.S. Although the hundreds of firefighters attending the fire in more than 20 fire units initially feared a mass evacuation would be necessary, only a single street was evacuated as offshore winds blew the smoke out across the lake. Just five years before the Hickson Fire in 1995, a fire broke out at a plant just a block away from USE Hickson, injuring one man and forcing the evacuation of several hundred people.

Fires are not our only safety issue however, a November 2010 Hazmat Level 3 chemical spill occurred at 10 Chemical Court, near Manse Road and Coronation Drive. Residents and businesses in the area were again evacuated as north winds dispersed the chemical through the air over populated areas. Sixteen fire units were dispatched to that scene.

Jim Wakefield, Allen Elias, and Don York certainly recall these incidents, as long term area residents they are members of the Community Advisory Panel (CAP) for the Community Alerting and Emergency Response (CAER) group working with industries in the area. They have sent their own pointed letter to the local Councillor Ron Moeser, objecting to the elimination of Pumper 215, the risk to those community members located adjacent to this industrial area is real, it’s significant, and increasing response times by minutes is an unacceptable risk for this community!

However, this is not a Ward 44 issue only since other communities are also being affected. I am sure that each community has their own special risks and needs. In particular infill development, particularly wood frame mid-rise projects present a very real fire risk during construction… one need look no further than recent events in Kingston.

Fire Services are NOT gravy they are essential to every community, let your Councillor know you demand a restoration of the Fire Services Budget!