Lloydminster Fire Rescue Service now has a formal, council-approved standard for how fast it must respond to emergencies – and the department says it is already positioned to meet it.
Council approved the Lloydminster Fire Rescue Service Level Policy on May 25, setting an eight-minute target for first alarm responses at the 90th percentile. Second and third alarms carry a 10-minute standard.
The policy comes roughly a year after Fire Station 2 transitioned to 24-hour, seven-day-a-week staffing on July 1, 2025, a shift Chief Bill Heesing said meaningfully improved coverage across the city.
Councillor Michael Diachuk asked how Lloydminster’s new standard compared to other Alberta cities.
“Some cities go for six minutes, they meet NFPA, and some municipalities in Alberta go for the 10-minute mark, which is the HIRF standard for high intensity residential fires,” Heesing said. “So we took a number we were comfortable with, kind of in between both of them.”
Heesing noted that response time involves three separate variables: 911 call processing, crew mobilization, and drive time.
“We felt eight minutes is a good time to start with,” he said. “And when we present the 2026 annual report, we’ll hopefully see some great results in those numbers.”
Deputy Mayor Justin Vance asked what happens when the target isn’t met. Heesing said the department doesn’t wait for its annual report to find out.
“I just want to emphasize that we wouldn’t wait to an annual report. We review our calls and our times on a weekly basis,” Heesing said. “If we do see a trend or something’s changing, that’s something we would address and bring forward.”
Lloydminster’s acting City Manager Don Stang said persistent failures to meet the standard would eventually come back to council.
“If we’re consistently not meeting, then that’s probably something we’re going to have to come back to council and have some discussions around – whether that’s increasing our resource or changing our service level standard,” Stang said. “But we are very confident that the numbers we’re proposing right now, based on the operations and the number of staff we have, we feel we can achieve these with relative success.”
Councillor Michele Charles Gustafson tied the policy to the broader question of public trust.
“Service standards are so important because they articulate to the public what they can expect of you, while giving you a bar to move on and up to,” she said.
Response time results will be reported to council annually through the fire department’s annual report.
Read more: GALLERY: Lloydminster Fire Rescue battles north end blaze
