ATHABASCA – The Town of Athabasca’s Fire Department had a quiet first quarter this year, but an increase in medical-assist calls continues to be an issue for the volunteers, according to the fire chief.
During the April 18 Town of Athabasca Council meeting, chief Travis Shalapay, alongside deputy chief Jason Sturrock, and captain Adam Koons, broke down the first-quarter numbers, including the number of calls volunteers responded to, as well as the locations, and type of calls.
The department is off to a “good” start so far, with 21 calls compared to the 25 over the same time frame last year, and the 36 in 2021. Much of the decrease came in the alarm call/standby/standdown section, which has seen a marked decrease over the years. In 2021 the department responded to 13, which decreased to seven in 2022, before falling again to just three in 2023.
In place of the alarm calls, Shalapay noted that the medical-assist calls have continued to slowly creep up, with the department responding to eight in 2023, up from five the year before. “Fortunately for us, these last few months the alarm calls have been minor, mostly medical-lift assists,” said Shalapay. “Rather than waiting for another ambulance to come, EMS will radio us. If they need help getting into a building, well, who better then the guys with axes and big boots to kick through a door.”
After medical assists, motor-vehicle collisions were the second most common, with the department responding to five; one in town, one in the county, and three on highways, which are classified as “other” for jurisdictional reasons. According to Shalapay, this isn’t unusual for the time of year, as “winter driving around here can be challenging at times.”
“We did have a few significant MVCs, but that’s par for the course with some of these area highways,” he said.
The remainder were split as the department responded to one structure fire, two vehicle fires, one “other” fire, which means it wasn’t either a vehicle, a structure or a wildfire, three alarm calls, and one service/bylaw call. Twelve of the 21 calls were within the town limits, five were within county limits, where the department responded to either assist another regions department, or to cover while the regional firefighters were at a different call, and the remaining four occurred on highways or lakes, which fall under provincial and federal jurisdictions.
Staffing
Currently, the department is bringing in seven new members, which will bring their total to 24, with an extra four in reserve, who can come help in “dire straits.” Shalapay is hoping that the seven recruits, who are mostly in their mid-30s, will stick around for a few years.
“Three to five years has been the window of time where we’ve been seeing people turn over. So, fingers crossed that we can get them in, get them trained up, and they’ll stick around with us,” said Shalapay.
Coun. Jonathan LeMessurier had asked if the department was comfortable with their recruitment numbers, now that they had seven more members stepping into the role.
“To me, a comfortable number is 20-25 members,” answered Shalapay. “The new recruits will get us back into that comfort zone; we’ve been very lucky that we have a solid response to our calls, we usually get eight, nine, ten members, so we get a pretty good turnout. But we do have members that work shifts, and it adds a bit of variety and risk there.”
The department spent 288 hours training in the first quarter, and 124 hours responding to the 21 calls they received. Shalapay did note that the month of April had already surpassed the first quarter in terms of response hours; the volunteers spent 143 hours over the first 18 days of the month responding to calls.
Above and beyond
CAO Rachel Ramey took the time to pass along an e-mail that her office had received, recognizing Sturrock for his actions during a medical assist, where he helped two paramedics transport ambulance to Edmonton to help a person undergoing a “significant medical emergency” that required two attendants in the back with the patient. Sturrock helped transport the patient down to Edmonton, which took seven hours in total.
Councillors thanked the deputy chief with a round of applause, with mayor Rob Balay noting that it was “above and beyond” the job description. “Take the praise; it’s not why we do it, but take it when you get it,” said Shalapay. “That’s the above and beyond on the volunteerism side. It’s why we do it, we do it to help people.”
Balay finished the presentation by sincerely thanking the three firefighters for what they did. “We can never say thank you to you and your guys enough, and I hope you know that. We appreciate all the things you guys do for us.”
