A fire truck responds to a call at a Midtown apartment building. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Fire response

Call volumes heat up for PA Fire Department in 2025

Nov 19, 2025 | 4:55 PM

Coming off a banner year in 2024, the Prince Albert Fire Department (PAFD) is on track to set a new record this year with calls.

As of November 18, fire crews responded to 1,922 calls. This is 184 more than the same period last year and roughly 80 short of the entire total for last year. Fire Chief Kris Olsen said that while there has been a decrease in structure fires, there has been a noticeable increase this year for false alarms and what the department categorizes as grass, brush and wildfires.

“Crews are definitely busy. The days of training and cleaning up the equipment and maybe not having a run for three or four hours, I think those are behind us,” he said.

Included with brush, grass, wildfires stats are encampment fires and a quick read over of the department’s social media page, confirms just in the past week, there have been a number of related incidents. One was one in the 900 block of 24th Street West and another in the 500 block of 15th Street East. Olsen said when responding to these incidents, the fire department works closely with the city’s police service and bylaw officers.

“We are definitely concerned about fires in encampments for everyone’s safety,” he said.

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This encampment on the riverbank is located in the 400 block of 4th Street East and is about 15 feet away from a second encampment of a similar size. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

The ultimate determination of whether a fire is considered arson is made by the Prince Albert Police Service. The most recent stats available for this year are to the end of September and show 69. This represents 18 more than the same period in 2024.

Olsen estimated 70 per cent of their total calls to date this year resulted in a determination of suspicious in nature.

When asked about the impact of an increased number of calls on the department, Olsen stated overtime has remained average, adding there are two staffed engine companies in the city and they have been able to meet the expectations of the call volume increase in their regular hours of work.

“But I will comment we were under some strain, not necessarily with respect to fires in the city of Prince Albert but the wildfires experienced in the North,” he said. “It’s not just a PAFD story; that impacted departments right across Saskatchewan.”

With the holiday season around the corner, and people heating up their homes more, Olsen reminded the public that carbon monoxide detectors are mandatory.

As recently as Monday, fire crews responded to the 500 Block of 5th Street East for CO alarms going off. Fortunately there was no carbon monoxide found in the structure. The cause of the alarm was determined to be from a faulty detector.

“A carbon monoxide detector is the cheapest life insurance you can get,” Olsen said.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @nigelmaxwell