Structure fires are on the rise, says Hamilton fire chief Dave Cunliffe.
At the Emergency and Community Services Committee meeting Thursday, Cunliffe presented a Community Risk Assessment, which showed city-wide statistics that show a rise in house fires since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2024.
Data presented to the committee show a drop in the number of Hamilton structure fires between 2013 and 2020.
"In 2020, everything came back," he said, with data showing in the last four years that the number of structure fires continues to rise.
"We continue to see an ongoing trend, which is higher than the national average, of structure fires occurring."
The majority of those fires are in Wards 2, 3 and 4 in the lower city. Wards 13, 14 and 15 make up 10 per cent of the city's structure fires. This includes Flamborough, Waterdown, Dundas and Ancaster combined.
Residential fires make up 75 per cent of structure fires in Hamilton and single family homes made up the majority of structure fires according to the data Cunliffe presented. Cunliffe said Hamilton's fires follow a national trend of being more common in the winter months.
In his experience, Cunliffe said, the majority of fires Hamilton Fire responds to are caused by behavioural issues. Electrical fires, unattended cooking and careless smoking are the top three causes of accidental fires. Arson is the fourth major contributor.
"I have to tell you, all these fires are preventable," Cunliffe said.
He pointed to non-working smoke detectors, an increase of people living in encampments and lighting fires for warmth, an increased risk of wild fires and a year-over-year rise in calls for service as areas of concern.
Complex city layout creates high risk
"Hamilton has one of the most diverse and complex risk profiles in the country," Cunliffe said.
Some of the reasons for that complexity is the combination of old and new buildings across the city, the railway lines and 400 series highways that pass through Hamilton, the busy port at Hamilton Harbour, and the pipelines that pass through the city, including through Flamborough.
The large rural area where Hamilton Fire responds also adds to that complexity. Rural Hamilton areas like Flamborough makes up 46 per cent of the city's land area. When a fire happens in a rural location, like the barn fire on Highway 8 on Wednesday, trucks can take several crucial minutes to arrive.
Data from the city shows that trucks dispatched from the Waterdown Fire Station took an average of seven minutes and 58 seconds to arrive in 2023. For larger scale structure fires that require the Effective Firefighting and Rescue Force, it took an average of nine minutes and 38 seconds to arrive in 2023.
Flamborough currently is serviced by the Waterdown Fire Station and plans for a new station on Highway 6 are in the works, with completion targeted for 2026.