Cold Lake council has formally adopted a 10-minute fire suppression response standard — a move that will directly impact future building requirements in parts of the city.

At a recent meeting chaired by Mayor Bob Mattice, council directed administration to prepare a policy framework recognizing a 10-minute response time as the city’s operational standard.

Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Nagoya said the change is tied closely to Alberta’s building and fire codes.

“This heavily relates to building code requirements throughout the community,” Nagoya explained.

Under provincial code, building design requirements — including exterior materials, window placement and separation distances — are influenced by how quickly fire crews can reach a property.

“If we’re not able to do response times… beyond a certain time limit, that facility or that building… the fire is growing,” Nagoya said. “That’s why you see these numbers in there — kind of this 10-minute standard that is generally accepted practice.”

Fire Response Map

What the Map Shows

Council reviewed a response-time map that divides the city into green, yellow, and red areas.

Nagoya summarized it simply:

“Everything in green and kind of yellow meets the practice. You can see here everything in red starts to get to the extremities.”

Response time begins the moment someone calls 911. It includes:

▪ dispatch time
▪ firefighters arriving at the hall
▪ gearing up
▪ rolling out
▪ drive time to the incident

“The longer you drive, the longer time it takes,” Nagoya said.

Administration is already working to shorten dispatch processing time where possible, but geography remains a factor — particularly in outer neighbourhoods.

South Fire Station

North Fire Station

Both Fire Stations

The Fire Response Coverage Maps (North & South Stations) depict best-case travel-time bands from each station. These maps reflect travel time only and must be interpreted alongside validated dispatch and firefighter turnout data. Under the current paid-on-call model, even with immediate dispatch for structure fires, firefighter turnout remains the dominant time component, leaving limited travel time within a 10-minute total response window. When used together, these mapping tools help identify where a 10-minute total fire service response may reasonably be demonstrated at the 90th percentile and where it cannot. In areas where compliant performance cannot be demonstrated, NBCAE construction-based mitigation applies by default. This approach ensures transparency for applicants, consistent application across Planning, Development, and Safety Codes, and defensible decision-making for Council.

What This Means for Homeowners and Builders

In areas shown in red — where response times exceed the 10-minute target — different building code requirements may apply.

Nagoya gave examples:

“If houses don’t have the separation, they may not be able to have windows on the side of the house,” he said. “There might be requirements for not having just vinyl siding… it may have to be a different type of siding.”

Those requirements are not being invented locally — they flow from provincial building code standards.

The city is required to provide updated response-time mapping to its building inspectors so code enforcement aligns with actual service levels.

Why Not Make Everything Green?

Council did discuss the obvious question: why not eliminate red areas entirely?

Nagoya said achieving full coverage within the 10-minute threshold would require a significant shift in fire service staffing and infrastructure.

“How do you make this all green?” he posed.

That would mean moving toward more full-time fire coverage.

“That comes at a tremendous cost,” Nagoya said, noting it would also have “tremendous cost associated with the incremental tax implications.”

Cold Lake currently operates under a paid-on-call model. Nagoya advised maintaining that model as long as possible.

“My advice… is to be kind of on that volunteer paid-on-call model for as long as you possibly can,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that as the city grows, discussions about response coverage will eventually need to evolve.

“At some point… we do have to have kind of those conversations on is the red starting to get too big in regards to the exposure of response times.”

What Council Approved

Council approved administration’s recommendation to proceed with formalizing the 10-minute standard and preparing the associated policy framework.

The motion carried unanimously.

This does not change how fire crews respond today. It formalizes the city’s response-time standard for planning and building-code purposes — and provides clarity for developers and inspectors moving forward.