Fire damages up in '08

The first half of 2008 is proving costly when it comes to fire damages in comparison to loss in 2007.

Fire Chief Grant Love says the department has had 830 calls to service, which is a decrease of 24 calls from that in 2007, but Love says the cost of fire losses in 2008 has increased.

“There were 3 major fires the first 15 days of January,” says Love.

“We’ve had 25 structure fires in ’08 and 31structure fires in 2007 for the same dates, while we had 14 vehicle fires that cost $47 thousand in ’07 and 11 vehicle fires in ‘08 at a cost of $136 thousand.”

“The total fire damages for 2007 were $1.176 million and in ‘08 it is $1.846 million.”

Love says a number of things factor into the increase amounts such as a new house is lost versus an older less stable one, but at the same time he says is it important for the department to look at stats year to year.

Analyzing the statistics Love was pleased to say that response times are very good.

“The emergency response times have gone done to 4.07 minutes for urban and 8.98 minutes for rural.”

“This is defiantly good news,” he says of the response times.