Things seem to be slowing down for the Puslinch Fire Department, leaving councillors here wondering if it is just a blip in the figures or a trend for the future.
Fire Chief Bob Gordon was at council on Oct. 19 reporting yet another slow month for the department.
Mayor Dennis Lever asked if a graph could be generated to show trends, or even to compare with the previous year.
Lever said he was not seeking anything complex, but something for councillors to get a feel of where things were heading. He agreed many calls are from Highway 401.
Gordon said the percentage of calls is shown on the monthly report. Lever said it is also good to see the comparison to the previous years.
“But I’m a big fan of trends – so we can plan for the future,” the mayor said. He wanted to determine if the current drop in the number of calls was an aberration or a seasonal trend.
Gordon said current numbers are not part of a seasonal trend. He has the past 10 years’ worth of month-by-month numbers tracked in a computer spreadsheet program.
Gordon said there were a few years where the call numbers were significantly higher.
Councillor Susan Fielding asked what council would actually be able to do with the information.
Lever was curious if the lower numbers are part of a long-term trend. He said many fire departments have a big push into education, to work at prevention.
“Is this drop in calls the result of that education?” he asked. He noted this is not just in fire, but also other calls. Gordon agreed ambulance assist calls are down as well.
Fielding said anything gleaned “would be very subjective,” adding long-term statistics would be needed to determine anything concrete.
“It may be worthwhile to look 10 years back,” she said. But she agreed the number of calls certainly affects the fire department in terms of staffing and the type of equipment required. She did not advocate reductions, because next month there could be 400 calls.
Gordon said in other areas fire calls are way down, too.
Lever asked if there was any talk among local fire chiefs why that is. Gordon said education is more about being fire safe, but has nothing to do with accident calls.
Fielding said she has noticed a drop in calls on Highway 6.
“There are still lots of accidents on Highway 6, but most of them are fender benders where the fire department is not required,” she said.
She attributed the change to traffic congestion on the highway. “You can’t speed, and it is speed that generally results in bad accidents.” She said traffic congestion may have the same side effect in other areas.
Gordon said one example is a truck that went into the ditch in Puslinch the same night as council, and the fire department was not called. He suspected there were no injuries or spills, which explains why.
Lever said, “We’d all agree that we’d rather see the money spent on education, than going out to calls.”
Fielding later suggested fewer people choosing to smoke might also be a factor in the lower number of fire calls. There’s probably a lot of factors involved, she added.
