The Castlegar fire department received 791 calls last year.  2018 was slightly less busy than 2017, down 58 calls all together. 68 calls for fires were received last year compared to 70 in 2017. Rescue calls requiring the jaws of life were down from 42 to 20; hazardous materials went up by three from 18 to 21.

Chief Lattanzio says calls definitely fluctuate from year to year, but there’s one thing in particular that did contribute to the change, “A lot less calls when it came to our BC Abundance assist. You know they had a change in practice back in the spring of 2018 which did impact us in call volume.”

The impact was a decrease of 21 calls year over year to First Responder Medical incidents.

The numbers were submitted to Castlegar City Council this week, where Chief Lattanzio also highlighted all the hard work put in by the department’s members.

“In particular, I wanted to recognize our firefighters, they put in over 5,700 hours and you got to remember, they’re are volunteers.”

Those hours were for training, call response, and standby. The most contributed by one member during the year was 485.5.