Detached garage fire contained in Oyster Pond

CITYnews halifax/By Natasha O’Neill

Crews tackled a garage blaze that could have spread to more structures close by.

Halifax’s firefighter union said the call for the blaze came in around 7:34 a.m. Station 24, Musquodoboit Harbour, teams responded to Oyster Pond to find a garage in flames.

They noted while on scene that about 50 feet away, other structures were at risk of catching. Using a plan to minimize damage and prevent spreading, firefighters were able to quickly douse the flames.

“Calls like this are a reminder that emergencies don’t wait — and why having firefighters ready to respond at a moment’s notice saves property and lives,” Halifax Professional Fire Fighters said in a post.

The union has been highlighting incident saying more funding is needed to help improve response times across the entire municipality. In 2024, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency (HRFE) only reached its own response target 54.5 per cent of the time.

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“Response time targets are critical to ensure we have enough resources, that’s firefighters on fire trucks, on scene quickly to perform search, rescue and fire suppression,” Joe Triff, vice-president of HPFF, told CityNews. “Every second that passes without intervention allows a fire to grow and spread, increasing the risk to the public and to the responding firefighters.”

In 2018, Halifax Regional Council adopted the current standard of 14 firefighters in 11 minutes. That standard is already below the international best practice set out in NFPA 1710.

HRFE staffs 51 stations serving 419,000 residents in a 5,577 km² area.