Halifax’s growth prompts fire service to train for elevated challenges

Halifax's population surge is fueling a highrise boom and city staff are looking at increasing the maximum height of buildings in and around the downtown core.

It raises concerns about firefighting capabilities in the face of potential emergency calls atop these growing residential towers.

On Monday, firefighters in Halifax were put through some intense highrise training by an international expert who is experienced in dealing with fires on some of the world's tallest buildings.

"Our traditional way of highrise firefighting has changed," said Brent Brooks, a captain with the Toronto Fire Department and lead instructor with High Rise Firefighting. "The buildings are not the same, they are higher, they are more complex and they house more people.”

As Halifax transforms into one of the country's fastest-growing cities, a pressing housing shortage still looms large.

To address the housing shortage, the city is eyeing an increase to the maximum height of highrise buildings in the centre area, which would allow for an increase from 33 up to 40 storeys, with the aim of increasing housing units.

Kate Greene is the director of Regional and Community Planning with Halifax Regional Municipality and says the area is short roughly 20,000 housing units and current construction can't keep up with the demand.

Greene says the city sees upwards of 3,500 to 4,000 units built each year and they are looking to double that output. Part of the solution is to build taller.

"We're receiving feedback on the proposal that we created right now," said Greene, which would increase the maximum height to 40 storeys.

Public engagement around the Housing Accelerator Fund closes Friday says Greene and they hope to pull all the feedback together and bring a report back to the council in late March with direction on how to reach their housing targets.

"Forty storeys is a number that we are comfortable with at this point and we felt it was close to what the Centre Plan had in place already and wasn't too significant of a departure from that," said Greene.

Although highrise fire calls come in with much less frequency than residential calls, when they do happen they put a major strain on staffing and other resources said Halifax Regional Deputy Fire Chief Brad Meldrum.

"Vertical density is increasing at an amazing rate, and traditionally here in HRM, our fire service has in the past been challenged by drive times to communities that are well spread out but now we're growing up," said Meldrum. "This means we need more firefighters and specialized equipment to respond to emergencies in those buildings."

According to national fire safety standards, a resident house fire requires the response of 14 firefighters who are expected to arrive in 11 minutes or sooner.

Meldrum says those targets for highrise calls increase significantly, requiring 43 firefighters on the scene in 14 minutes.

Brooks says there are many fire services across the country that wouldn't be able to meet those highrise standards but it's something for which they need to be better prepared.

"We've got to get a leg up on this and start training now for tomorrow's highrise buildings," said Brooks.

Halifax Regional Fire will present its 2024/25 budget request Halifax council on March 1. It's anticipated they'll be looking to increase staffing levels to meet the growing demand.

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