Fire prevention, education and response for community safety

This Strategic Story is just one example of how the 2023-2026 Strategic Plan and community feedback helped inform the 2024-2026 staff tabled budget.

Complete Community:

Fire safety education, fire code enforcement and emergency response contribute to public safety and improved quality of life for all.

What we heard

When residents shared their vision for the future of Waterloo, common themes included:

I’m concerned with fire response coverage across the City, dealing with the expected population boom, and the challenges of increased height and density of our buildings.

Fire safety education needs to be easy to understand and for different audiences (children, students, newcomers, seniors) as well as those who would help educate them (parents, caregivers).

More people are living together because of the housing crisis, are their homes up to code for fire safety? Renters like students need to know the requirements for a fire-safe space and how to verify (like testing alarms).

Why it's important

Our City is growing and changing, and our Fire Rescue Services need to grow and change with it. To support our plans to add 16,000 housing units by 2031, and target prevention education to the diverse audiences in our community, we need more resources, including staff, vehicles and equipment.

What we're doing

With budget adoption, we will phase in the hiring of additional firefighters, and the purchase of the vehicles and equipment needed to support public safety needs as our community grows, ages, and as buildings get higher and closer together. We’ll also expand our public education and fire code enforcement activities, considering the needs of our postsecondary students, older adults and our diverse population with English as an additional language with inclusive programming. Neighbourhood safety is a key component of a high quality of life for all residents, and fire personnel will have the additional resources and training to respond to all types of situations.

Read more Strategic Stories.