Despite the impression the community may have from the online attention and heightened concerns in the city, firefighters have responded to a fairly average number of calls in the beginning of 2025.
In fact, fire call numbers are down significantly from 2024, which saw a spike in fire calls earlier in the year, said Assistant Fire Chief Cory Boyd.
"For this year, our call response has dropped about 33 per cent of actual confirmed fires compared to last year, and there's no particular reason for that," said Boyd. He noted the previous year was actually the anomaly, with a record number of calls.
He said dumpster fires are pretty much on par with previous years.
From January 1, 2025 to May 31, 2025, there have been 41 confirmed fire calls for the fire department, said Boyd. These were calls where firefighters arrived to a confirmed fire.
In 2024 in the same time period, there were 62 confirmed fires and in 2023, there were 51.
While the fire department also responds to other types of calls, including vehicle incidents, smoke alarms and more, general call numbers are also down for 2025.
Boyd said he thinks there were higher numbers of false fire alarms and burning complaints in early 2024 which resulted in the higher numbers last year, with 233 calls to service for firefighters from January 1 to May 31 in 2024.
In the same five months for 2025, there have been 185 total call-outs for city firefighters.
This is close to the numbers firefighters dealt with in 2022 and 2023 in the same period, with 183 and 176, respectively.
Boyd said there have been changes to how fires are being recorded in their system which came into effect halfway through 2024, making it harder for him to break down year to year comparisons on some specific types of fires, including structure fires.
But the changes to how they track fires now mean more accurate breakdowns on fire types will be easier to compare going forward.
He said based on what he has seen, there has not been an increase in fire calls for the fire department due to the unhoused population.
Instead, Boyd said concerns around fires and the unhoused is probably attributable to the increased online attention.
"I think there's a lot more social media coverage maybe than previous years."
Boyd encouraged the public to continue to call in fires and smoke when they see them and to follow provincial burning rules, check for prohibitions and to make sure to use fire responsibly.
