Performance-Based Fire Master Plan.
Key takeaways
- Ask Council to define the service level first. Every later decision traces back to it.
- Track a short list of indicators every year so you can spot pressure early.
- Find the cause of a performance dip before you fund a fix.
- Count prevention as response capacity. Fewer calls mean more units available.
Your fire chief walks into budget deliberations and asks for four more firefighters. A councillor asks one question: how do we know we need them?
That question deserves a clear answer every year. The City of Mission, BC, now has a way to give one. Working with FireWise Consulting, Mission Fire Rescue Service built a fire master plan that links each spending decision to a Council-approved service level and to data the fire service tracks annually.
Mission’s population grew about 16% between 2019 and 2026, from 39,870 to an estimated 46,200. Calls grew faster, rising 38% from 3,192 in 2021 to 4,402 in 2025.
The plan pulls together nearly 10 years of Mission’s business-planning work into one system the City can keep using as the community grows.
What is a Performance-Based Fire Master Plan?
A performance-based fire master plan starts with a level of service that council approves. The fire service then tracks a short set of indicators each year to show whether it meets that level. When an indicator slips, the plan directs you to find the cause before you choose a fix.
Start with the service level Council expects
A service level is a plain promise to the community. It says how quickly crews should arrive and with how many firefighters. It also sets how often the system should hit that target. In Mission, Council sets this level. Administration then decides how best to deliver it.
For example, a council might set a target for the first engine to reach structure fires within a set number of minutes on 90% of calls.
This order matters. Once Council owns the target, every later conversation about staffing or apparatus traces back to a decision Council already made.
Measure what tells you something
Mission’s framework watches indicators like these:
- Response reliability: how often crews arrive within the target time.
- First- and second-unit availability: whether a crew is free when the next call comes in.
- Concurrent incidents: how often calls overlap and stretch your crews.
- Effective response force: whether enough firefighters arrive to handle an incident safely.
- Workforce health: how well you recruit and keep both career and Paid-on-Call members. Paid-on-Call firefighters respond from home or work and earn pay per call.
- Medical call workload: how much of your capacity goes to medical responses.
- Prevention capacity: whether inspections and public education keep pace with growth.
Diagnose before you prescribe
Say second-unit availability drops over two years. One community traces it to a jump in lift-assist calls from a single care home. Another traces it to Paid-on-Call members who can no longer leave their day jobs. Those problems need different fixes, and neither one starts with a new hire.
The framework works through the options in a set order. First you look at cutting avoidable demand or adjusting deployment. Prevention and workforce practices come next. Changing the service level or adding capacity comes last. Staffing and new apparatus stay on the table. The plan asks for evidence before you reach for them.
How Mission tied fire department funding to performance
Mission paired its fire master plan with a funding model. Under that model, every spending request has to point to an approved service level or a measured gap in performance.
Here’s how the cycle would work each year:
- Council sets the service levels and performance targets it expects.
- Fire service staff report on performance against those targets.
- The report flags any indicator that is nearing its threshold.
- Staff test prevention and demand-management options before asking for new resources.
- Operating and capital needs feed one multi-year financial strategy.
- The City phases in investments based on urgency and affordability.
Why planned beats urgent
Large, one-time requests tend to arrive when something has already gone wrong. A fire engine reaches the end of its life, or a station can no longer house the crews it needs. At that point, Council faces a big number with little time to plan for it.
Mission’s model spreads that cost out. Smaller, predictable contributions each year let the City prepare for apparatus replacement and facility renewal well before either becomes urgent. That reduces the need for sudden tax increases.
What it means for taxpayers
The model asks the fire service to show its work. Before the City adds a permanent cost, staff look for efficiencies and partnerships that could meet the need first. Council sees the evidence and the options side by side.
For a fire chief, this changes the budget conversation. You walk in with a trend line and a clear link to a target Council already approved.
Why prevention counts as response capacity
Every call your crews avoid keeps a unit free for the next one. Mission’s plan treats community risk reduction as part of service delivery for exactly that reason.
Community risk reduction covers the work that stops emergencies before they start or makes them less severe. In Mission, that includes inspections and public education. It also includes smoke-alarm programs and FireSmart, the Canadian program that helps homeowners and communities prepare for wildfire.
Where prevention pays off first
Prevention matters most when response resources feel stretched. A growing community adds new buildings and new risk every year. If inspection capacity falls behind that growth, small problems turn into calls.
Construction sites show this clearly. A building under construction has no working sprinklers and plenty of fuel. A strong construction fire safety program lowers the chance that a site fire ties up several crews for hours.
Mission’s plan gives prevention a seat at the budget table. When an indicator slips, staff ask whether a prevention investment could protect response capacity before they ask for more crews. Over time, that approach helps keep operating and capital costs in check.
The result is a fire service that responds well when emergencies happen and works steadily to make them less frequent.
What Mission’s approach looks like in practice
Mission’s plan runs as a continuous loop. Each step hands off to the next:
Council defines the desired service level. Administration determines how best to deliver it. Performance data identifies emerging pressures. Sustainable funding supports timely and proportionate action.
The loop lets decisions shift as the community changes. Council keeps a clear line between what residents expect and what the fire service delivers. The fire service keeps a clear line between what it asks for and why.
Mission didn’t start from zero. The City and Mission Fire Rescue Service had already done nearly a decade of planning and organizational development work. FireWise brought that work together into one framework, alongside an updated Fire Master Plan and Strategic Plan.
Where to start in your community
You don’t need a full plan rewrite to borrow from Mission. Start with one conversation with your council about the level of service your community expects. Then pick the few indicators that would tell you whether you’re meeting it, and report on them every year.
If you’d like to talk through what this could look like for your department, FireWise Consulting works with fire services and municipalities on master plans and strategic plans. Get in touch with a team member today for more information at info@firewiseconsulting.com or learn more by visiting: www.firewiseconsulting.com/services/.
