Moncton overdose calls 'stabilized' after spike, fire chief says

50 overdose calls per day to city firefighters now down to around 5

Moncton's fire chief says overdose calls answered by firefighters have declined after surging for several weeks earlier this year.

For several weeks starting in late May, the city's fire department averaged 50 overdose calls per day. Conrad Landry said the department returned to an average of four to five overdose calls per day in mid-August.

"It's not great [because there are] still too many overdoses per day," Landry said in an interview on Monday.

"So the situation seems to be stabilized and now we're monitoring closely in case there's another spike or another batch of bad drugs that come in."

When the overdoses spiked, public health officials warned that medetomidine — a potent veterinary tranquilizer frequently mixed with fentanyl — had been detected in illicit drugs.

It's unclear how many fatal overdoses occurred.

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Landry spoke about the surge in calls as he presented fire department statistics to Moncton council on Monday evening.

Medical calls represented two-thirds of the department's 7,373 total calls as of the end of August. Of that total, 983 were overdose calls. That was up from 470 overdose calls during the same period last year.

Landry said there were also 1,431 calls for an unconscious person.

"If someone drives on the street and sees someone collapse, then is it an overdose or just it's someone that lost consciousness?" Landry said to city council about that category. "So we do have those two categories that may or may not be overdoses."

The figures Landry presented only reflect the calls the fire department received. Harvest House Atlantic, which runs one of the shelters in the city, previously told CBC News it had recorded 720 overdose responses between June 1 and June 22.

Landry said it is projected that the fire department will end the year with around 11,000 total calls for service, up from 9,751 in 2025.

The department's calls have steadily increased as the city's population has climbed. Statistics Canada has estimated the city's population was 102,378 last year, up from 81,402 in 2021.

A fire service review released last year includes 64 recommendations estimated to cost $285 million over 15 years. The review called for hiring 76 more staff, building a sixth fire station, relocating other stations and purchasing new trucks and equipment.

One step has already been completed by hiring 10 more firefighters for a new pickup truck to answer medical calls in the city's core. Landry said the truck was brought into service weeks early because of the overdose surge.

He told council the truck had answered 799 calls between June 12 and the end of August, meaning a larger truck with more firefighters didn't have to attend those calls and could answer other calls.

"It made all the difference," Landry said. "It's a smaller vehicle so you can respond a lot quicker. So we really saw a huge difference in so many aspects."

Shane Magee is a Moncton-based reporter for CBC News.