BRUCEDALE – Firefighters with the Guelph Eramosa Fire Department responded to 53 calls between May 1 and July 31.
Most (30) of the calls were for medical issues, according to the quarterly report presented to council on Aug. 14.
The report notes “there has been a significant increase in medical responses, due to ambulance delays and (the) renewed tiering agreement with Guelph Wellington EMS.”
Of the other calls:
– eight were for motor vehicle collisions;
– six for carbon monoxide alarms;
– four for fire alarms;
– three for burn complaints;
– one for a vehicle fire; and
– one for a structure fire.
An additional 66 calls in Guelph/Eramosa were attended by Guelph Fire.
Of these calls:
– 34 were medical;
– seven were motor vehicle collisions;
– 11 were carbon monoxide alarms;
– eight were fire alarms;
– four were burn complaints;
– one was a vehicle fire; and
– one was a structure fire.
Councillor Corey Woods said he’s surprised by the number of carbon monoxide calls.
“That’s something you just die of. The silent killer,” he said. “I would almost hope there would be no carbon monoxide calls.”
Fire chief Jim Petrik assured the majority of carbon monoxide calls are false alarms.
“So people aren’t sick, there’s not actually any accumulation of carbon monoxide in the home – it’s just the detectors are signalling an error and we’re getting called for it.”
However Petrik said they do also “encounter legitimate carbon monoxide alarms – typically as we are coming up to the fall season when people start up their wood stoves and their furnaces back up.
“If over the summer months things have deteriorated, those are times that we get legitimate calls when we go in and there’s carbon monoxide accumulations.
“So I can’t stress enough the importance of having those alarms systems in place.”
