SUNDRE — The holidays in the area were rather tame with no reports of any serious incidents being responded to by local emergency services.
But the Sundre Fire Department logged a record number of calls in 2021.
“Our call volume is higher than it’s ever been,” said Sundre Fire Department Chief Ross Clews. “We’ve never had this many runs.”
Looking over his department’s statistics, Clews said 353 calls for service were received last year. Those include everything from backcountry incidents and medical assists to false alarms, structure fires and motor vehicle collisions.
Prior to that, going back to 2011 when tracking statistics went digital, the highest call volume on record was in 2018 with 295 calls. The lowest was in 2014 with 173 calls, he said.
And from Dec. 24, 2021 to Jan. 3, 2022, he said there were 10 calls, none of which the chief would consider to be of a serious nature.
Between those dates there were no structure fires but three false alarms as well as four medical assists and a single, minor-injury motor vehicle collision.
There were also two calls from people who reported seeing fires in the distance. But one of those instances was a brush pile that was being burned on Christmas Eve, while the other that came in early on the morning of Dec. 27 was just a flare stack from a gas plant, he said.
“Everything was calm. People were acting safe over the holidays,” said Clews. “It was good season for us. We always like it when business is down.”
