Firefighters responding to medical calls, not fires, in almost half of Vancouver's emergencies

The Vancouver Fire Rescue Services recently released its 2023 annual report for fire incidents around the city, and the numbers show that medical emergencies have become more of an issue than putting out fires.

The report detailed that 48% of the calls to the fire rescue service in 2023 were medical, which amounts to almost 35,000 medical emergencies. Fire Chief Karen Fry described that fire rescue services are usually the first to respond to medical emergencies because of the speed at which they can respond.

“Because we have 20 fire halls located around the city and various avenues, we can get on scene within six minutes for 90% of our incidents,” said Fry.

“The ambulance resources just don’t have enough available to arrive on scene as quickly.”

According to the report, the number of medical emergencies around Vancouver increased because of the “growing strain on the healthcare system and reduced availability of family physicians.”

You might also like:
• Vancouver just broke a record for fires and officials say smoking materials are to blame
• Fire damages a once-beloved Vancouver music venue along East Hastings (PHOTO)
• Vancouver Fire Rescue Services is hiring heroes for jobs that pay pretty well

Fry shared that one of the biggest contributors to the increase in medical calls is the opioid crisis around the city.

“We are seeing one of the largest increases is continued overdose and poisoning types of calls,” said Fry. “The opioid crisis and overdose is still one of our leading drivers in response and medical costs.”

It is not just the call for medical emergencies that has increased. According to the report, the number of calls for fire emergencies has risen by almost 20%. As such, the fire department is having to adjust how many medical calls it can respond to.

“In order to be able to respond to increasing numbers of fires and alarms, we had to cut back the responses to too many medical calls that were kind of lower priority and ones where we would potentially be waiting for longer periods on scene,” said Fry.

“We’ve reduced the number or the type of calls that we respond to but there still are increasing more critical incidents and medical calls occurring in our city.”

Despite the challenges with the increasing incidents reported to the fire rescue service, Fry shared that she is “super proud of the work that firefighters and staff are doing each and every day.”