The Statesboro Fire Department fielded 2,473 calls for service in 2019, which includes all calls at which point the fire department is contacted to ‘do something’ within the community Chief Tim Graham told council members at a council workshop Tuesday.
Those calls were broken down as follows:
| Total Number of Incidents [Emergencies, when fire trucks roll, someone calls 911] |
1010 |
| # of incidents – City |
621 |
| # of incidents – GSU Campus |
85 |
| # of incidents – fire district |
248 |
| # of incidents outside fire district (mutual/automatic aid) |
56 |
Additionally, he broke down the calls by service type. They are as follows:
| SERVICE TYPE |
# OF INCIDENTS |
% OF TOTAL |
| Fire suppression |
185 |
16.64% |
| Overpressure rupture, explosion, overheat – no fire |
7 |
0.63% |
| Rescue (vehicle extraction) |
39 |
3.51% |
| Hazardous condition (no fire) |
67 |
6.03% |
| Prevention Activities (excluding inspections) |
229 |
20.59% |
| Good intent call |
95 |
8.59% |
| False alarm and false call |
487 |
43.79% |
| Severe weather & natural disaster |
2 |
0.18% |
| Special Incident type |
1 |
0.09% |
|
1,112 |
100% |
The large percentage of false alarms and false calls prompted a brief discussion by council regarding habitual false alarm calls, in which more than two false alarms in a 12 month period would result in a fine.
Chief Tim Graham told council members that the response time average for all incidents was 6:03, a number he said was very good considering it encompasses all calls regardless of whether or not they are in the city limits of Statesboro. “We try to be within four minutes, but it’s not bad considering those large areas we cover with elevated response times,” he said.
Overall, the split for city-non-city calls has averaged around 70-30 over the last three years.
| Estimated Property Loss due to fire incidents |
$4,010,637 |
| Estimated Pre-incident value of property involved in fire incidents |
$24,377,435 |
Graham also shared that 151 of the calls – or 15% – fielded were “overlapping,” meaning firefighters were on a call when another call for service was received.
Graham touted training for firefighters and the community as a top priority for the department in the last year. Statesboro firefighters and personnel clocked in a total of 13,177 hours of training in calendar year 2019 with the average number of training hours for firefighters through ranking battalion chiefs averaged 347 hours. Graham said the number of training hours used in consideration an ISO ranking caps at 240, which had him proud to pronounce the 347 average.
The fire department also conducted 1,361 fire inspections during the year.
