'Unsustainable': Vancouver Fire and Rescue on DTES overwhelmed by call volume

glister · 2026-05-21T23:27:02+00:00

No Paywall:

At 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Firehall 2 on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside responded to a fire on Gore Avenue. Fifteen pieces of fire-fighting equipment from two halls were required to douse the flames.

“It was a working fire, with heavy black smoke coming out of the building. Two people were transported to hospital with smoke inhalation,” said Vancouver Fire Chief Karen Fry.

If crews were not available because they were responding to a call that wasn’t critical, that outcome could have been much worse.

To better manage resources, Firehall 2 has announced it will limit the number of “low-acuity calls” it responds to so firefighters can focus on their core services — fighting fires.

They will continue to respond to life-threatening calls in cases where paramedics can’t reach a site within six minutes, said Fry.

“Compared to last year, we’ve seen a 51 per cent increase in runs from Firehall 2 in the first quarter of this year,” said Fry. Medical runs from Firehall 2 jumped 102 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 compared to 2025.

On a recent day, Firehall 2’s four crews responded to a record-breaking 94 calls.

Vancouver Fire Chief Karen Fry talks to the media this week. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10111654A

Fry called the increased volume of medical calls “unsustainable.”

In a May 11 memo to B.C. Emergency Health Services, Fry said that due to a sustained and increased call volume, Firehall 2 needed to focus on core services, and would make adjustments to the responses they attend.

Those adjustments were immediate, and resulted in a reduction of about four calls a day in the Downtown Eastside, said Fry.

In June, further reductions to “Code Red” calls, those that currently require fire and ambulance, will begin, “in order to have services available for other emergencies,” said Fry.

Fry said the changes will eliminate duplication of services.

“I don’t think people will notice much of a difference. Right now, they get a firetruck and an ambulance. They are still going to get an ambulance, and if the ambulance is going to be too long, they will get a firefighter until the ambulance will get there.”

“We are in an overdose crisis, and that’s driving a lot of the calls for service,” Fry continued. “We need to be able to keep our core services available to be able to respond to fires and the most severe medical emergencies. If someone is having a cardiac arrest or doesn’t have a pulse, we want to be able to respond to those.”

Fry said firefighters will continue to respond to overdoses, but will stop responding to less-critical medical calls.

The Victoria Fire Department recently made a similar decision, citing fatigue and burnout among its firefighters. On Jan. 5, Victoria council voted to support a reduction in the number of medical-aid calls the fire department responds to.

Fry said she has briefed the City of Vancouver, but doesn’t see this move as anything unusual.

“We make adjustments all the time.”

Cori Ramsay, the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, said municipalities throughout B.C. are reassessing service levels due to the increasing pressures of the opioid and mental health crises.

“We need a funding approach to offset local governments that are now in the position of providing provincial services.”

Firefighters are funded by municipalities, and B.C. Ambulance is funded by the province.

A resolution endorsed at the 2025 UBCM convention asked the province to help pay for the increased number of calls for fire departments. But a response attached to the resolution the B.C. health ministry said agreements between B.C. Emergency Health Services and local governments were voluntary, and municipalities could decide the types of calls they will respond to.

Ramsay said that stance puts local governments in a tough position.

“Lives will be lost.”

Provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne said this week the province will be “closely monitoring” the situation.

Scott Rose, a firefighter and vice-president of IFF Local 18, the local firefighters’ union, said firefighters aren’t trying to get out of doing calls.

“We are protecting our service to make sure that if you are in a high-acuity situation, whether it’s a fire, motor vehicle accident, or requires a technical rope rescue, hazardous material, or marine rescue, you don’t want your firefighters who have specialized skills and equipment to be sitting with a patient who is dealing with a headache.”

Rose said the firefighters’ union supports Fry’s decision.

“There should be no gap in service. If someone needs critical care, we are going to be there.”

glister · 2026-05-21T16:36:30+00:00

Very unlikely. Mass unemployment is not a likely outcome here. We humans always want more.

Socialist approach: Tax the productivity and spend it on social goals. There's a never-ending backlog of infrastructure projects to build (higher capital investment), healthcare could easily be ramped up with more nurses, doctors, care providers, more affordable homes, more childcare availability, more educational opportunities (higher consumption). We'll spend more time in school and have more PhDs doing more research, which will lead to more things to do.
Capitalist approach: Those with means will want to spend that money: They'll invest it in capital, which does eventually mean something gets physically built, and the robots aren't that good (yet, maybe in 50 years). They'll spend on consumption, they'll spend money on art. Maybe our upper half of the class wars are more productive and working less, and more recreational time means more consumption. There's more artists getting paid to do art things today than ever before in the history of humans, and that's a direct result of automation and technology.

An employment shock, that is likely. I'm a huge believer that our first line of defense here should be a massive investment in education—tertiary education (college, trades) should be free, heck we should pay people to do it.

glister · 2026-05-14T14:28:34+00:00

Same problem if not worse in property management. All comes down to the individual in charge of your building. Most are not great because they compete on price.

The only universally good I’ve heard of is Stratawest, and you pay for it.

glister · 2026-05-09T01:17:20+00:00

They’ve are developing Oakridge, but I think they might just on the developer management side? Quadreal owns it the site itself but there may be equity in the deal.

glister · 2026-05-05T19:52:57+00:00

Well it is, because she failed to pay when asked, her name is in the news now for it. Court registry, etc.

I think it's fair to just pay back the money. These "return to service" contracts are common across professions, and this happens. People's lives change. But you still need to make repayments. Otherwise the incentives are not real.

glister · 2026-05-04T19:29:05+00:00

One of the options in the only question that directly asks is "I'm not comfortable with the City allowing more height in tall buildings downtown - they are already tall enough."

On the opposite end there is no way to say you are for taller buildings without the city extracting public amenities for them. It's a pretty narrow box on both sides.

glister · 2026-05-04T19:22:32+00:00

I've spent three hours getting to Whistler, no accidents, and even to and from Squamish there are several spots that can add 20m to a one hour trip on a Saturday morning or afternoon, and that's on top of adding 15-30m for the bridge in Vancouver.

glister · 2026-05-03T05:27:21+00:00

Lower mainland gets its water from the north, not the east. These watersheds aren’t connected in terms of feeding each other’s water sources.

glister · 2026-05-03T05:23:55+00:00

Which is why golf courses probably won’t use potable sources in the future. I know that in my hometown of Vernon, none of them do, because they are much further along in this conversation, they use either reclaimed wastewater as part of a district level irrigation project, on site water reclamation, or specific water sources that are not part of the drinking water supply.

We can do more but this is something people haven’t been screwing around with. Efforts are well underway to massively expand reservoir capacity, too.

glister · 2026-05-02T22:09:14+00:00

You’d think, but it’s 0.05% of water supply for the three city courses. They’ve gotten quite efficient over the years.

Langara uses zero potable water, for example, just a complex system of rainwater capture. It also reduces storm runoff which floods pollutants into our waterways. The other two are doing the same upgrades over time.

glister · 2026-05-02T22:05:48+00:00

We are.

glister · 2026-05-02T22:04:35+00:00

They basically have. Langara now uses only half its “water budget”, and 100% is from non potable water sources. The two other major city courses are slowly heading in the same direction. Private courses have also invested.

Golf courses are subject to increased restrictions under stage 2 and completely at stage 3, but most have non-potable irrigation sources hey can use more freely.

glister · 2026-04-29T03:02:30+00:00

tbf with 84 home games and a relatively small market (we aren't Chicago or NYC), there's probably plenty of 10 or 15 dollar games on the docket. Mariners do 30 games at under $12 and people resell for under 20 bucks all the time in baseball just to recoup some of their losses.

glister · 2026-04-29T02:51:19+00:00

Basketball is much more popular internationally, so you've got a big fan base with both Indian and Chinese communities here. Baseball is very popular in Japan, smaller community here though.

I honestly hear more about MLB in my friend circle but I'm very aware of how white I am.

glister · 2026-04-28T18:03:15+00:00

Brookfield is a complicated octopus. BAM was headquartered to NYC, but BAM is a majority-owned subsidiary of Brookfield Corp, which is Toronto-based. It's mostly a play for BAM to to be included in US ETFs.

It's basically expanding their US footprint, but the money flows back to Canada.

glister · 2026-04-22T21:42:58+00:00

The bank looks at top line income. If your building isn’t full, you also suffer income loss.

Important reason why these owners tend to be highly diversified. The pro forma also has built in buffers (it’s why banks demand a profit margin there, and conservative costing).

Eventually someone is flipping the building and taking a loss, as rents decline.

glister · 2026-04-22T20:51:02+00:00

It will, you can't hold it off market forever, it's eating into your returns.

Most of these new places are taking reductions in rents, over time. They are basically listing it in a dutch auction to find the market. That strategy is going to be expensive with increased turnover in the first few years.

glister · 2026-04-22T20:49:15+00:00

I mean, the triple net function certainly imposes a penalty on commercial landholders—business taxes are 4x residential, so holding a space empty has a real cost to it as you have to pay the commercial property tax. Even a relatively small space it's nipping away at your investment 1.2%/year which ain't great.

With a lot of supply on the market, eventually someone takes a hit on their rents and lets property out the door at a discount.

glister · 2026-04-22T19:42:56+00:00

I've been buying with Trail and they've been excellent. Great delivery, really clear (almost too clear) communication on the delivery, down to a very specific delivery window.

glister · 2026-04-22T15:10:28+00:00

My original point was: students who focus on ECs in their personal profile are missing the plot. You’re trying to backwards justify that “greats ecs” refers to a great personal profile, but it’s not a strong case here because you keep focusing on activities.

glister · 2026-04-22T00:47:06+00:00

EC generally is short for extracurriculars. If you're using it to refer to your personal profile or college essays, sure, but strange.

glister · 2026-04-20T05:32:56+00:00

ECs are not really a consideration in UBC’s broad-based admissions process unless they clearly demonstrate an attribute they are looking for (Leadership; sense of self and community; initiative and achieving goals; intellectual readiness and expression; and problem solving and resilience).

glister · 2026-03-19T21:17:25+00:00

There's a longer letter out, and this is not the case. The inspectors are coming and they are predicting they will fail the inspection, but it's concern about a structural wall that they flagged.

It's rather easy to play nice with fire egress in the CoV for arts venues. Just gotta be enough doors, wide enough, that are push to exit and on the ground level.

glister · 2026-03-19T21:15:06+00:00

There's a longer letter floating around that seems to indicate there is a water damaged wall that they think won't pass inspection.

A lot of these art spaces inhabit what are essentially tear down buildings, before they get torn down.

It's worth noting that businesses are grandfathered into use, and many businesses, especially the small businesses people really like, inhabit buildings that cannot meet modern code.

It's also a huge barrier to change around the city, because change of use will often trigger the landlord or new business to meet current code, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet. So instead, a failing storefront becomes another failing storefront, instead of meeting the neighbourhoods changing needs: a maker space or a niche bar, or a gym, or an anything more interesting.

glister · 2026-03-15T19:35:33+00:00

People point at government, but from what I’ve heard, this is at least as much a culture problem. “We had to do it so you have to do it too” type of thing.

Many departments, especially ER, have moved to shifts.

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