The Quesnel Volunteer Fire Department responded to a total of 745 calls last year, by far the most ever.
That was up from 724 in 2022 and from 643 in 2021.
Those numbers were released at last (Tuesday) night’s City Council meeting.
Fire Chief Ron Richert said last year’s calls resulted in a total of 4,173 fire fighter hours.
He also talked about why the numbers have increased.
“Our burning complaints increased from 66 calls in 2022 to 99, that’s illegal campfires throughout our community. We had an increase in dumpster fires, false alarms, hazmat and natural gas calls increased, we had a couple of bomb threats in 2023.”
Richert also noted that motor vehicle incidents were also up across the board.
“Minor motor vehicle accidents did increase from 18 to 26 and our serious motor vehicle accidents increased from 36 to 43.”
He said that there were also more residential/outbuilding structure fires, from 17 to 24.
Richert also noted a couple of decreases.
“On a good note medical aid incidents dropped from 194 in 2022 to 128, so we had quite a reduction there. Commerical/industrial structure fires, which are mill fires, we had quite a reduction there from 7 to 2.”
Richert also gave a report last night on the department’s wildfire deployments in 2023.
“The Quesnel Fire Department was involved with four separate wildfire deployments in 2023, totaling 23 days and over 430 working hours. The first deployment request came from BC Wildfire on June 7th. The Quesnel Fire Department was dispatched to Tumbler Ridge with two people and our water tender. They were there from June 8th to the 13th and then they were redeployed to the Donnie Creek Fire near Fort St. John from June 14 to the 23rd.”
Richert said they sent four fire fighters and one of their fire engines to the Keremeos fire from August 16th to the 26th, and the BC Wildfire Service requested their water tender to the West Kelowna fire in August.
He said that piece of equipment along with two fire fighters were there from the 18th to the 23rd.
Richert said that those deployments resulted in more than 200 thousand dollars in revenue.
He said, minus wages and diesel, they were left with a profit of about 175 thousand dollars.
Richert said that money went into the fire department’s capital reserve.
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