Code Red calls trending back up, something to look into

Posted on August 8, 2024 by Sunny South News

By Nikki Jamieson
Sunny South News

The following are selected briefs from the Protectives Services report for the first and second quarters of 2024 from Clayton Rutberg, director of protective services, emergency management, and fire chief for the town of Coaldale, as presented during council’s regular July 15 meeting.

• The department has received a total of 326 calls, which was steady in comparison to 2023. There has been a spike in total personnel hours, totaling 2323 hours for the time period, largely attributed to one event, a fire in May 2024, for which nearly 400 personnel hours were logged. Rutberg said it was one of their largest events in quite a few years in terms of time.

• Of the calls they responded to, 184 were medical, 46 false alarms, 40 motor vehicle collisions, 11 cancelled or found nothing calls, nine outside fire, nine public assists, seven hazmat calls, five structure fire, five carbon monoxide, four controlled burns, four vehicle fires, one electrical hazard, and one rescue call. Of the canceled calls, Rutberg said they “weren’t really false alarms” for the people they arrived to, but were more from people driving by.

• There were 19 Code Red Calls with no EMS units in town. While this was “a little bit higher than last year”, Rutberg said it was significantly lower than in 2022, were they saw 80 Code Reds.

• In terms of fire prevention activities, the department hosted four fire hall tours, three public events, three smoke detector and home inspection visits, on conducted eight fire investigations

• Eight fire recruits have completed fire recruit academy and are active as probationary firefighters. Additionally, three of them are previous graduates of the Kate Andrews Fire Academy. This means that CDES has a full roster of firefighters.

• In terms of community standards, 112 complaints received in Q1/Q2

• On the animal control side, 62 dog related complaints were received, and 18 dogs placed in new homes.

When asked why the code red numbers are going up, Rutberg said it would be something to investigate why they’re starting to trend back up, noting that last year was their best year in terms of Code Red calls. Rutberg expected the town to have approximately 40 Code red calls by the end of the year, “half of our worst year yet, but still trending back up”.

Council unaminously passed a motion to receive the report as information.