EAST HANTS: Motor vehicle collisions was the top call of 2020 for local fire departments that provided data for the 2020 year to The Laker News.
While we asked for year end call info from all those who participate in the From the Firehouse column, sponsored by Brannen’s Service Centre, only a few had supplied that information. And those that did, the info showed mvc’s, mutual aid requests to neighbouring departments; and medical assists (while limited due to COVID19 restrictions and most departments not responding for majority of the year to medicals as a result) were the top three.
Overall, East Hants firefighters heard the “sound of their people” for 179 mvc’s; 159 mutual aid calls; 146 medical assists; 60 structure fires; and grass/brush/garbage fires 33 times, to name a few.
Here are the top calls as per data added together from Indian brook Fire; Elmsdale Fire; Shubie fire; Milford Fire; Nine Mile River fire; Enfield Fire; and Mount Uniacke Fire. Other departments did not provide year-end data.
In Indian Brook, firefighters had 73 calls in the year, led by 21 mvc’s’; 17 structure fire calls; 11 grass fires; six commercial alarms; six residential fire alarms; five chimney fires; four medical assists; and one CO Gas alarm.
While they did not have a breakdown, Shubenacadie Fire told us they responded to 154 calls during the year.
Kennetcook Fire responded to nine mvc’s among their 47 calls for the year. That was followed by eight chimney fire calls; eight medical assists; five grass fires; five structure fires; four alarm activations; three woods rescue; two vehicle fires; two ATV accidents; and one industrial accident.
For Enfield Fire, crews had 161 calls, on the low end of things considering past years when they had well over 300-plus calls. Their tally was led by 50 medical assists; 35 mvc’s; 27 mutual aid calls; 21 alarm activations; eight brush fires; seven other calls; five structure fires; two vehicle fires; and one flue fire.
In Elmsdale, firefighters had 145 calls, led by 54 mvc’s, which one may expect as they cover Hwy 102 between Elmsdale and Milford and Elmsdale and Enfield, plus mutual aid calls.
They also had 38 medical assists; 17 structure fires; 17 alarm activations; 10 brush fires; five other calls; three flue fires; and one vehicle fire.
Milford Fire heard their pagers tone for 34 calls in their own community while 73 times for mutual aid calls, 43 of which were to Shubenacadie Fire. They also went mutual aid nine times each to Indian Brook and HRM; six to Elmsdale; five to Stewiacke; and once to Nine Mile River.
The breakdown of their 2020 call volume is as follows: 51 mvc’s; 19 residential structures; eight fire alarm activations; six commercial fires; six chimney fires; five industrial fires; five vehicle fires; three CO detectors; two grass fires; one lines arcing; and one medical assist.
In Nine Mile Rover, their 2020 calls were led by 20 mutual aid requests to neighbouring departments; 14 medical assists; nine mvc’s; four wood/grass fires; two fire investigations; two power pole/lines fire; and two assist RCMP/EHS.
Firefighters also dealt with one each of a vehicle fire; structure fire; chimney fire; fire alarm activation; and a garbage fire.
For Mount Uniacke Fire, they responded to 118 calls in the year, with their top three calls being 31 medical assists; 29 motor vehicle collisions; and 10 fire alarms.
The department’s calls were cut in half when compared to 2019 when they were paged out to 240 calls. They had a total of 5,217 hours volunteered during the year which includes calls, training, and meetings.
