Nanaimo FIRE Department or Ambulance Service?

---

Public Information Bulletin

Nanaimo Fire Rescue Calls Up Sharply

Medical calls account for most of the increase — while fire calls are down slightly

A comparison of Nanaimo Fire Rescue incident totals from Jan. 1 to June 28 shows a sharp increase in overall calls between 2025 and 2026 — with medical calls driving most of that increase.

Over the same period, actual fire calls were slightly lower in 2026 than in 2025.

Period	Total Calls	Medical Calls	Medical % of Total	Fire Calls	Fire % of Total
Jan. 1 – June 28, 2025	5,291	3,527	66.7%	71	1.3%
Jan. 1 – June 28, 2026	6,232	4,386	70.4%	67	1.1%

Year-Over-Year Change

Category	2025	2026	Change	% Change
Total Calls	5,291	6,232	+941	+17.8%
Medical Calls	3,527	4,386	+859	+24.4%
Fire Calls	71	67	-4	-5.6%
Non-Medical Calls	1,764	1,846	+82	+4.6%

What This Means

Medical calls rose from 66.7% of all Nanaimo Fire Rescue calls in 2025 to 70.4% in 2026.

Fire calls moved in the opposite direction, declining from 71 calls in 2025 to 67 calls in 2026. As a share of total calls, fire incidents represented only 1.3% of all calls in 2025 and 1.1% in 2026.

Total calls increased by 941 year-over-year. Of that increase, 859 calls were medical calls.

In plain language, medical calls accounted for approximately 91% of the total increase in Nanaimo Fire Rescue incidents over the same period.

Points to Ponder

• Overall Nanaimo Fire Rescue call volume increased by 17.8%.
• Medical calls increased by 24.4%.
• Fire calls decreased by 5.6%.
• Fire calls represented only 1.1% of total calls in the 2026 period.
• Non-medical calls increased by only 4.6%.
• The growing demand on fire services appears to be driven overwhelmingly by medical response calls.

This raises an important public policy question:

Is this the Nanaimo Fire Department putting out fires —
or is Nanaimo Fire Rescue increasingly doing provincial ambulance service work?

That does not mean the calls are not important. Medical emergencies are real emergencies. But it does mean the public deserves a clear discussion about what is driving fire department workload, what role Nanaimo Fire Rescue is being asked to play, and whether municipal taxpayers are increasingly funding a service that properly belongs under provincial health care.

Before taxpayers are asked to fund ever-expanding municipal services, they should be given a clear breakdown of what is actually driving the demand.

Calls Per Day Comparison

Another way to look at the numbers is to break them down by average calls per day. The period from Jan. 1 to June 28 covers 179 days in both 2025 and 2026.

Category	2025 Total	2025 Calls/Day	2026 Total	2026 Calls/Day	Change/Day
Total Calls	5,291	29.6	6,232	34.8	+5.3
Medical Calls	3,527	19.7	4,386	24.5	+4.8
Fire Calls	71	0.4	67	0.4	Flat
Non-Medical Calls	1,764	9.9	1,846	10.3	+0.5

In daily workload terms, Nanaimo Fire Rescue averaged about 5.3 more calls per day in 2026 than in the same period of 2025.

Of that increase, approximately 4.8 additional calls per day were medical calls.

The public numbers clearly show medical calls are driving the increase. What the public data does not yet show is how many of those medical calls are overdose or drug-poisoning related. That is a question Nanaimo Fire Rescue, BCEHS, Island Health, or the City should be able to answer with a proper breakdown.