The national standards the City of Red Deer is legally required to meet are the National Fire Code of Canada (NFC) and the National Building Code of Canada (NBC). These relate specifically to building codes and fire prevention. These codes focus on the design, construction, and maintenance of buildings to ensure fire safety and occupant protection. They do not specify requirements for fire department response times or staffing levels.

There are documents from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in the United States which contains response times and staffing levels.  These are not legally binding in Canada. We are not aware of any Alberta city that meets the NFPA recommendations.

The City of Red Deer looks to High-Intensity Residential Fires (HIRF) guidelines, which are guidelines designed to minimize the risk and impact of severe fires in residential areas. These standards are about development and geography. However, they also inform The City’s service level with a shared goal to ensure that fire departments can respond to residential fires within 10 minutes, 90% of the time (from the time the call comes in, until the time the truck arrives on scene).

The City of Red Deer’s service levels are as follows:

• Fire and emergency response within 10 minutes, 90% of the time (from the time the call comes in, until the first truck arrives on scene).
• Target staffing level of 31 personnel per shift across five stations.
• Minimum staffing level of 4 fire personnel on each fire truck.
  • If staff are unavailable, Station #2 may operate as a support company with 2 fire personnel on a fire truck, supporting on an as needed basis with two personnel; or the fire truck at Station #2 may be removed from service.
• Minimum staffing level of 2 paramedics on each ambulance.

Emergency Services Stations are geographically located to ensure safe and efficient response times across the city of Red Deer.

The area typically served by Station #2 is also covered by other Red Deer emergency services stations. Due to its geographic location, there is overlapping coverage for the Station #2 area. The service coverage map below demonstrates this overlap, with hatch marks identifying the zones that fall within the response range of multiple stations. 

Based on this geographic distribution, The City continues to meet its established emergency response service levels city-wide, even when temporary staffing adjustments occur at Station #2.

Download map (pdf)