In 2022 Ponoka County Regional Fire Services – East District, responded to two hundred and eleven calls from the Town of Ponoka. It was the busiest year since the county took over fire services in March of 2018. Of those 211 calls, one hundred and five were alarm calls.
Donna Noble, Protective Services Coordinator for the County, told Ponoka town council there were sixty-five false alarm calls that the county didn’t charge to the town because they turned out to be false alarms. Forty-four of those were false alarms usually from home alarm systems. “The majority of our false alarms turn out to be cooking incidents or shower steam,” Noble said.
Even though it’s a false alarm, the volunteer firefighters who show up still need to be paid. “We still have members that respond to the hall and we will have members at the hall but under the agreement, unless a truck leaves the hall we cannot bill the town,” Noble said, adding ” We still absorb the costs of our firefighters who end up at the hall.”
A quick calculation of man hours by councillor Sandra Lyons put the dollar figure for the false alarms at roughly twenty thousand dollars. “I don’t think the county should bear that cost,” Lyons said. “Maybe I’m out of line but I think that’s something that maybe we have to do better. If there are calls that people are standing down and they’re still being paid, there’s got to be a way to collect that on our side,” Lyons said. Council did not pass any motions to take action on the issue.
Noble made it clear money will never be the determining factor for fire response. “We don’t discourage alarm or alarm calls. They can be a saving grace and absolutely do help. But these alarm companies are not educating the homeowners about the alarm system and how it operates. We will show up and the homeowners will often say, I killed the alarm on my panel, ” Noble said, adding “That doesn’t cancel it. The alarm company needs to speak to you before fire crews are called off.”
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