Fire service response issue for new community a long time in the making
By COLLIN GALLANT on February 21, 2020.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant A new housing development in southwest Medicine Hat is beyond the quick reach of a new fire station on Trans-Canada Way, but there is a long, complex history behind why. The city’s 2010 fire services strategic plan showed that due to major population growth in the previous decade, about 20,000 residents lived outside the response time standard of six-minutes and 20 seconds. That included large portions of South Ridge and the Hamptons in the south and northeast Crescent Heights. That led to a proposed fourth station in the deep south, but eventually administrators found that moving Station No. 2 from Dunmore Road to Trans-Canada Way would bring almost all existing housing into line with the standard. According to development forecasts in the 2010 report, homes for an additional 10,000 residents would be added outside coverage area, including in the southwest. By 2012, however, a major growth node in the southwest was delayed indefinitely when the planned community of Cimarron entered bankruptcy. The new, much smaller 220-lot Coulee Ridge subdivision is moving ahead this year on part of that land. It is accessible from S. Boundary Road, about three kilometres west of Southridge Drive. Also delayed once Cimarron collapsed was a proposed southwest connector road, joining S. Boundary Road to Highway 3 by direct route over the Seven Persons coulee. That road would have improved response times from Station No. 3, located near the Medicine Hat Regional Airport, but there is no immediate timeline for construction. 10-9
