VICTORIA — British Columbia's fire commissioner has highlighted the importance of functioning smoke alarms, saying too many people were needlessly dying, as he released a report showing that fire fatalities have tripled since 2019.
Brian Godlonton's annual report for 2022 shows there were more than 9,000 fires in the province last year, resulting in 86 fatalities, up from 28 in 2019."We are having too many fires and too many people are losing their lives in structure fires when those deaths could have been prevented," he said at a news conference Thursday.
"I think what we're starting to see is what one may call a wear-off factor — that if there's not ongoing … awareness and education, then it wears off and people forget, and they take it for granted and assume their smoke alarm is going to work and going to function. And that's certainly not the case," he said.
"Fire services need to provide more services and targeted public education programs to protect our aging population," the report says. The government and Statistics Canada have also created a dashboard to provide statistical and geographical information on fires in B.C.
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