Gravel road to better connect fire hall to Copperwood recommended to Lethbridge city council

The City of Lethbridge is looking to improve response times for firefighters at Station No. 5 on the west side.

The city’s economic and finance standing policy committee voted to recommend that council approve a gravel road be built from the fire station to Métis Trail West to improve response times to Copperwood.

The station, which was opened in 2021, only has one road in and one road out with no direct access to Copperwood or the Crossings area.

The gravel road would connect the station but comes with a cost of $315,000.

Thirty per cent of that would be recouped when the road is fully developed in future years.

“We mapped some times from Station No. 5 to the traffic circle on the north end of Métis Trail,” said Deputy Chief Wes Borland with Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services.

“(The) current route takes about five minutes and 15 seconds, (while) the proposed new route would take one minute and 40 seconds—a difference of 3 minutes and 35 seconds.”

“So, when speaking structure fire, cardiac arrest—things like that—the time does matter,” added Borland.

“Seconds matter, and this would increase our performance a lot.”

The item will now go to city council for final approval.