For Lloydminster Fire Rescue, 2025 was highlighted by what it calls change, with a new name and more than half of its staff positions being filled.
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It was a big year for the fire service as it implemented a brand new model.
“(Last year) was a year of significant growth and change for Lloydminster Fire Rescue services, marked by rebranding initiatives, staffing changes, equipment upgrades, increased call volumes and ongoing response training to ensure the continued delivery of competent and professional service to the community,” Fire Chief Bill Heesing said at the May 11 Governance and Priorities Committee meeting.
Two staffed stations and a rebrand were highlights of the year.
“It was important to rebrand to provide the name of our service to the community, representing all services that are provided by Lloydminster Fire Rescue,” he said.
Heesing gave some insight into how many staff the service employs.
“We are 61 staff, one Fire Chief, two assistant Fire Chiefs, one admin assistant, one full-time training captain, eight full-time captains, eight full-time firefighters and 40 paid-on-call firefighters,” he said.
Recruitment was also a key piece as more than half of the service’s total staffing positions were filled.
“A year of change in collaboration with employee relations, 38 positions were filled, which included my position as Fire Chief early in the year, two assistant chiefs, full-time training captain, five full-time captains, nine full-time firefighters and 20 paid-on-call firefighters,” said Heesing.
He explained the staff took more than 10,000 hours of training.
“(It) equals about 150 to 200 hours per employee, on average,” he said.
Heesing also highlighted a mental health program they offer.
“We continually promote the peer-to-peer mental health program, maintaining the team with mental health resources and understanding of the challenge of the roles,” he said.
Plenty of projects were on the go as well, including some key safety projects, recertifications and concluded their three-year headset project for their fire apparatuses. They also recertified Tower 18 and it came in under budget, largely due to Cenovus Energy providing seven months of coverage by loaning their tower apparatus to the city for free.
Fire prevention week was incredibly busy as they hosted hundreds of people at Station 2.
“Fire prevention week is always very busy. We hosted over 500 people and displays and activities in Station 2,” said Heesing.
Fire inspections didn’t hit their goal in 2025, attributed to a vacancy within the fire service.
According to Heesing, they had another record year for calls with upwards of 1,393 calls.
A spike in the second half could be attributed to their medical first response program.
Medical assists was also a new program for the department.
“We went to 296 medical calls between probably the middle of June to the end of December,” said Heesing.
City manager Dion Pollard clarified they were previously responding to these calls, just not receiving payment for them.
“That was one of the reasons for getting into a structured process,” he said. “We were going anyway and not getting any kind of funding for it. At least now we’re getting something for it.”
Heesing noted that their funding is based directly on the number of calls they respond to.
They may get called to a medical situation if there are no ambulances available for 20 minutes. Within their agreement, they can say they aren’t available to respond.
Within the new model, the city now has around-the-clock coverage with the city being broken down into districts.
Average response times for Station 1 is 9:31. For Station 2 it’s 7:14.
July 1 will mark one full year of the new model.
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