Kelowna highrise fire shows need to double firefighters: union president
What was likely Kelowna’s first fire inside a highrise on May 29 has local firefighters calling for changes.
“It keeps me up at night,” Jason Picklyk, president of Kelowna Professional Firefighters Association, Local 953, told iNFOnews.ca. “To keep my members safe, we need numbers. They keep building these highrises and we’re being left blowing in the wind.”
The fire was in the new Brooklyn highrise on St. Paul Street in downtown Kelowna. It was considered minor and was put out by internal sprinkler systems before firefighters arrived, Picklyk said.
“The fire was kind of a wake-up call,” he said. “It was in a new building and it still had a fire and it had some issues with it.”
There were problems with the elevator and other equipment, which may have been caused by the massive amounts of water poured into the ninth-floor unit by the sprinkler system.
Such problems are normal when fighting fires but this was the first one Picklyk knows of that was actually inside a highrise. He recalls one on an outdoor patio of a Landmark building some years ago.
The City of Kelowna has at least 23 firefighters on duty 24 hours a day and sent 16 to this fire, as is standard practice for structure fires.
That falls far below the National Fire Protection Association standard that calls on 43 firefighters to respond to highrise fires, Picklyk said. That’s the association that sets standards for things like fire extinguishers and alarms, along with suggesting ideal staffing levels.
“I call it SEE: safe, effective, efficient firefighting practices,” Picklyk said. “We don’t do things in parallel. We do them in series. You’ve got to bring people down. You’ve got to ventilate. You’ve got to attack the fire and all these things have got to happen at the same time. You need people on scene to do all these things and relieve them. They get tired. If the elevator’s not working you’ve got to go up the stairwells.”
In Toronto, 53 firefighters are called out to highrise alarms. In Vancouver, about 48 respond to house or highrise fires, he said.
“They’ve taken that 40-storey building and plucked it in Kelowna,” Picklyk said. “It’s the same building. It’s the same fire. Fires don’t burn differently in Toronto and Vancouver than they do in Kelowna and we have 23 people.”
Kelowna’s One Water Street has a 35-storey tower that’s just being finished. Construction has started on a 42-storey tower in the Water Street by the Park development. The Brooklyn is 25 storeys.
“They’ve taken the buildings, they’ve taken the density but we haven’t built our infrastructure, which is now making it tough for my people and our safety going to these fires,” Picklyk said.
But it’s more than just a shortage of members at a particular fire. It’s also the backup needed if another fire breaks out in the city at the same time.
The city is relying on call-backs to off-duty workers or things like mutual aid agreements with other fire departments but there's no guarantee the people will be able to respond in a timely manner, which is to be onsite in eight minutes, he said.
Plus, if there is a second fire in a Kelowna highrise, calling in firefighters from Lake Country or West Kelowna means bringing in crews that have likely not been trained in highrise firefighting.
Firehall #2, the Water Street firehall, has had the same four-person staffing level for 22 years, Picklyk said. They run a ladder truck and a fire engine that requires all four firefighters and is used for 90% of the calls to the hall. Plus, they’re responsible for the city’s marine rescue boat.
It’s one of the busiest firehalls in Canada, he said, and it is closest to the downtown highrises.
The last time Kelowna’s firefighting ranks grew was in 2018 when Glenmore firehall was converted to full-time.
Picklyk recognizes that increasing staffing levels will take time.
“Can we do this in one budget round?” he asked. “I don’t think it’s reasonable. But we’ve got to have a plan to work toward to make sure we get there. I’m OK with a plan going forward but I haven’t seen the plan. I don’t know what the plan is. I don’t know if there is a plan to staff up.”
Fire chief Travis Whiting, when asked that question by iNFonews.ca last week, said he’s always looking at staffing issues and at ways to make them more efficient.
READ MORE: How Kelowna firefighters handled rare highrise fire last weekend
Picklyk, as the union president, is not consulted on staffing levels. He pointed out that, while RCMP Supt. Kara Triance reports crime stats and issues directly to Kelowna city council, the fire chief reports to a department manager within the city.
“We’re hoping our managers are getting the ears of the people who are making these decisions,” he said.
Picklyk would like to see developers of the highrises pay towards increasing firefighting staff.
Builders currently pay thousands of dollars to the city for every housing unit they build. But the province stipulates that those development cost charges are for things like roads, sewers and parks and can’t be used for things like police and fire services.
The fees are lower for downtown housing because it’s cheaper than pushing roads and water lines out into far-flung subdivisions.
The city’s focus is on getting more people to live in urban centres, like downtown, so more towers are in the works.
READ MORE: iN PHOTOS: More than 500 storeys of new highrises in pipeline for downtown Kelowna
“We’ve got the ones now that it’s tough to protect and there’s only getting more and more and more,” Picklyk said. “They’re not taking them down so we better start going forward. It keeps me up at night. My members are going to have to go in and they’re going to have to make hard decisions on life and safety with what they have.
“To me, we’re at a crossroads in this city. Are we going to remain a mid-sized town or are we going to be a city? We have big city buildings and our infrastructure is small.”
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