Kananaskis Country to receive $18.5M emergency services centre

Kananaskis Country is getting a new emergency services centre, to the tune of $18.5 million.

The province has committed the fundingover the next three years to replace the current facility, which is 30 years old and was built for the 1988 Olympics.

The new centre is "vital" to public safety, says area MLACam Westhead.

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"Today'sannouncementis a majormilestonein the development of theKananaskisregion," said MarkStorie, theregional director for Alberta Parks.

The emergency services centre houses full-time and casualfirefightersas well as an advanced life-support EMS unit with two AHS staff on site at all times.

Designwork on the new centre is to start this year with the centreexpected to be fully operational by 2019.

Craig Halifax, the chief of emergency services forKananaskis, said the centre has reached the end ofits lifecycle. Larger firefighting vehicles no longer fit in the main houses, and the building is showing the wear and tear that comeswith 30 years of constant use.

"The facility maintenance we've seen increasing every year as far as the time and cost that needs to be put into the building to keep it running," said Halifax.

Call volumes on the rise

Westhead saidthe number of dispatch calls fielded through the Kananaskiscentre has increased tenfold since 2000.

"Currently, emergency services centre staff respond to more than 4,000 incidents per year," he said.

Emergency calls in 2016 have already doubled what they were at this time in 2015, Westhead added.

"There's been a very positive trend in the [past] 10years,"said Jeremy Mackenzie, a public safety specialist with Kananskis Country Public Safety.

He attributed the rise in calls to the growth of Calgary's population.

"If you have a certain number of visitors you're probably going to have a certain number of calls," he said.

Mackenzie said there have been 88 public safety calls to the centre so far this year.