St. Charles Fire Department Calls at 10-year Low

The St. Charles Fire Department saw a significant decline in the number of service calls in 2012, but officials are attributing the drop to  4,217 calls for service from 4,511 in 2011 to the city’s ending its fire service to areas outside of St. Charles.

The city’s service agreement to provide coverage to those areas ended May 1, 2011.

The decline brings the number of department service calls to the lowest it’s been in the past 10 years, according to the department’s annual report for 2012. The 2012 tally represents a nearly 20 percent decrease from the 10-year high of 5,215 in 2006.

“The main reason for the decline is that the city’s fire department no longer provides service to the area of the St. Charles Countryside Fire Protection District (now called Fox River & Countryside Fire & Rescue District),” the report states. “That area typically generated about 20 percent of the total calls for service or approximately 1,000 calls annually.”

The report also notes:

60 percent of service calls were for emergency medical calls.

4 percent of calls (157) were for fires, with the majority being structure fires. The rest were car  fire, brush fires, Dumpster fires, grass/brush fires, and cooking/chimney fires.

Related:

• The full report.

• City Administrator Brian Townsend also posted the annual report on his St. Charles Patch blog.

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