City of Surrey 2019 Annual Financial Report

CITY OF SURREY OVERVIEWS FIRE DEPARTMENT

The Surrey Fire Service’s mission is to protect life, property and the environment by responding to emergencies, ensuring regulatory compliance and developing community education. Surrey Fire Service helps to make our City a safe place to live. In addition to the Department’s Administration Division, there are two other divisions which include:

OPERATIONS Operations is the largest division and is responsible for emergency medical services, fire suppression, and hazardous materials response and rescue activities. In addition to the above activities handled by the Suppression branch, the Operations division is also responsible for the Prevention branch and the Training branch. Through these programs, City staff and the large network of volunteers provide valuable community emergency services.

SURREY EMERGENCY PROGRAM Surrey’s Emergency Program includes Neighbourhood Emergency Preparedness Program (NEPP); Business Emergency Preparedness Program (BEPP); Surrey Emergency Program Amateur Radio (SEPAR); Surrey Search and Rescue (SSAR); and Emergency Social Services (ESS), Level One: Personal Disaster Assistance. Through these programs, City staff and the large network of volunteers provide valuable community emergency services.

2 0 1 9 A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S • Continued to work on behalf of the City Manager and the Regional Administrator Advisory Committee and BC Emergency Health Services to establish a more efficient approach for Fire Services and Ambulance Services involvement in responding to medical emergencies in Surrey. • Decreased fire rates by almost half rate from 3.8 fires per 100 abandoned homes in 2018 to 1.9 fires per 100 abandoned homes in 2019 through the work of the Community Property Safety Team. • Reduced fire related death and injuries in residential properties through the continued refinement of the Home Safe Program. • Conducted smoke alarm verifications and saw an increase in functioning smoke alarms at the time of a residential fire from 25% in 2006 to 62% in 2019. • Inspected 8,187 business properties and provided 7,812 safety educational inspection pamphlets to the business proprietors to improve the resiliency of businesses in the event of a disaster or major incidents. • Identified properties with potential urban/wildland fire risk and mailed out a smart fire educational brochure to all occupants in the identified at risk properties. • Decreased rate of residential fire by 72% to 0.6 fires per 1,000 residential structures from 2006. • Decreased rate of residential fire death/injury per 10,000 residents by 57% from 2006 from 10.9 casualties per 10,000 residents to 4.7 for 2019.

• Delivered 12 Surrey Emergency Preparedness presentations and 23 emergency preparedness booths. • Delivered 7,567 targeted disaster recovery educational pamphlets through the Business Emergency Preparedness Program. • Coordinated 16 Level 1 emergency support service responses with 71 displaced residents. The City of Surrey’s Emergency Social Services Level 2 team provided support to individuals evacuated from 19 residential units. • Installed 612 smoke alarms and conducted HomeSafe inspections including the 12,038 smoke alarm initiative responses. • Delivered safety pamphlets to 857 individuals at local Food Bank events and contacted 161 homes through Community Engagement Volunteers Call Centre. • Conducted smoke alarm awareness campaign directed to 6,512 homeowners who visited City Hall during the annual property tax season. • Successfully renewed multi-year contract agreements for 33 Surrey Fire Service’s Dispatch Clients. This strategically allows increased control of quality and costs of service for Surrey and secures multi-year contract revenues on a net positive basis for the City’s operating budget. • Launched Surrey Fire Regional Dispatch’s inaugural marketing campaign as vendor of choice at 2019 Fire Chiefs of BC Annual General Meeting trades expo.

• Published 13 research articles and/or papers illustrating the evidence-based decision-making used for strategic planning and emergency activity. • Continued deployment of the anti-idling power unit’s technology to lower greenhouse gas emissions. • Signed an Articulation Agreement with the University of the Fraser Valley that provides a transfer credit partnership offering employees pathways to complete post-secondary education as part of their Surrey Fire Service training. • Implemented an online medically monitored health portal has been developed with 190 staff enrolled as part of the final testing phase. This tool assists in confidentially enabling service members to conveniently manage their individual health portfolios. • Continued to support the mitigation of the opioid crisis in collaboration with Fraser Health, Police and BCEHS through improved resource deployment. • Held two emergency planning scenario-based training sessions for participation with all City departments. • Continued improvements in the efficiency of the City’s Emergency Social Service response capabilities between the Fire Service Department and the Parks, Recreation and Culture Department.

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