Tim Darland, Fire Chief
It is always interesting looking back the previous year to review the fire department run sheets and see if the data reveal anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I should phrase it “strange.” The word “ordinary” shouldn’t be used within the fire service, as every call is inherently different. There are, of course, similarities that we use to describe our calls, and we lump them into six categories for our reporting purposes.
To recap 2019 HPFD activities: Members responded to a total of 96 emergency calls this last year of which 28 calls were in-district responses. The graph below shows the breakdown. Most of the categories are self-explanatory. The “good intent calls” are where our firefighters were asked to stand down when other departments maintained control of their emergency scene or when alarm companies called to cancel responding units.
To calculate the value of service we take the number of hours spent on emergency responses and training/maintenance activities and multiply it by the total personnel time on each activity. Then we multiply the number of volunteer hours by $25.43, the average emergency services hourly wage (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). The table below shows that HPFD MEMBERS VOLUNTEERED A TOTAL OF 850 HOURS in 2019! THE VALUE OF SERVICE TO OUR COMMUNITY TOTALED $21,616. One additional note, we must not forget to mention the completion of Station 2 on Schilling Road. The residents within 5 road miles are now receiving, or should be receiving, an 8a insurance rating for their home owners insurance. Please check with your insurance companies to ensure savings are passed along to you.
I must acknowledge our Fire Commissioners who sign a waiver not to get paid for their time serving in their elected positions, which keeps more dollars in the budget for gear and safety equipment. Thank you for your dedication to our department and community. One other person to acknowledge is our Administrative Assistant, Glenna Scott. She is a paid member of our department and worth every penny we give her.
To come back to my initial thought, the year 2019 was strange to me in that we didn’t respond to many active wildfires. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly appreciated the break. Many of the wildland calls we received were for smoke investigations and a few regarding burn piles. Our residents did a great job calling 911 early and reporting smoke and suspicious activities. Keep up the great work and report early. This is true for any emergency. Stay safe!