Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services is limiting the number of shifts firefighters take at its Downtown Eastside firehall due to the overwhelming number of overdose calls that hall must attend.
According to a recent agency post on social media, on Nov. 21 there were a record 54 overdose calls in the city, with Firehall 2 at the corner of Main and Powell streets responding to most of them.
On Tuesday, Nov 21st, firefighters responded to the most overdoses in department history for a single day: 54.
VFRS averaged 16 overdoses/day in May and it jumped significantly lately and during income assistant week where firefighters averaged 45 overdoses/day last week. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/r7ZJy8F8nA
— Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (@VanFireRescue) November 26, 2025
The agency also reported the number of overdose calls jumped significantly in November, with an average of 45 a day in the third week of November.
“Last week there were 452 emergency calls into Firehall 2’s district, compared to 229 last year during the same period,” the agency stated on X on Nov. 26.
As a result of “compassion fatigue”, the fire service is limiting firefighters to 81 shifts a year at Firehall 2.
According to the First Nations Health Authority, the week of Nov. 17-21 had B.C.’s highest number of calls ever made to 911 for toxic drug poisoning.
The authority attributed the jump to drug dealers mixing the veterinary drug medetomidine with fentanyl and then mixing that with street drugs.
Medetomidine is not a controlled substance and is used to help control aggression in animals or for pre-surgical sedation.
B.C. declared a state of public health emergency in 2016 due to the opioid overdose crisis. The worst year of overdose deaths since then was 2023 when 2,589 deaths were reported. Most of the deaths are due to the opioid fentanyl being mixed into street drugs.
Many people survive overdoses, due in part to the widespread availability of the reversal drug Narcan, but it can leave people with permanent brain damage.
The B.C. Coroners Service’s latest unregulated drug deaths report, issued Sept. 30, showed there were 1,384 deaths in the province this year up to that point.
Overdoses are the greatest cause of unnatural death in B.C. by a wide margin.
