They’re trained to be able to respond to just about any type of emergency at a moment’s notice, but when time is critical, there are times when the crew at Station One is slowed down by traffic.

“We want to get to the call as quickly as possible, but as safely as possible,” Cpt. Al Cooke with Edmonton Fire Rescue said.

“It just gets worse as the day goes on, because of rush hour traffic, etcetera.”

“When they see the lights and the sirens they’re not really sure what to do, they panic,” Firefighter Jaden Rao said.

Rao had to complete extensive training to drive the firetrucks – and in his four years behind the wheel he’s witnessed drivers go to some unusual and unsafe lengths to get out of his way.

“People [have pulled] out into oncoming traffic,” Rao said. “Thinking that they can go in that direction, and that’s pretty surprising with what people will come up with on the spot.”

At other times, Cooke said they had seen drivers go out into intersections.

“That’s not what we want either because that’s a safety issue for them,” Cooke said.

In an effort to alert drivers ahead of time, there are a few traffic lights downtown that have an ‘F’ next to them – when that lights up, it’s to warn drivers to be aware that firetrucks may be coming through.

Meanwhile, Edmonton Fire Rescue has also been testing a traffic light preemption system, where several trucks in the west end are equipped with a wireless system to control traffic lights in some busy areas to keep the lights green and the traffic moving.

Officials said the pilot project has led to response times improved by an average of 31 seconds.

The system is expanding, and officials said they hope to have it in other parts of the city in the coming years.

In any situation where an emergency vehicle needs to get through, drivers are supposed to pull over to the right and come to a complete stop, in some cases, Cooke said drivers do the former, but don’t quite complete the latter.

“A lot of them will just move over and they’ll slow down, but we may have to make a right hand turn,” Cooke said.

Rao said as a firetruck driver, it’s very helpful when other motorists follow the rules and stop.

“It helps us out because we have a path that we can kind of see that’s clear, we know that people are confirmed stopped and then we can safely proceed through,” Rao said.

Regardless of what firefighters encounter on their way to a call, they can’t control other drivers – which can slow down their response times.

“If we’re in a situation where we can’t get through we wait, we have to,” Cooke said.

With files from Amanda Anderson