Photo courtesy of the Lumby Fire Department

By Liam Verster

Fire Department Report

Lumby and District Fire Department expecting record number of calls in 2021

Aug 18, 2021 | 1:09 PM

A new report on calls for service by the Lumby and District Fire Department shows they are trending towards a record number of calls in 2021.

Between January and July, the fire department responded to 93 calls for service, 35 of which were located in the Village of Lumby, 53 were in the rural Lumby area, and four were out of district. One of those rural calls was a dispatch error made in April.

While speaking to Vernon Matters, Fire Chief Tony Clayton said the number of calls as of August 15 is 102, well above the average of 63 in that same time period from past years, and they are expected to see a year with record calls for service.

“On a normal year by the middle of August, there’s about 65 or 70 calls, and we’re at 102, so we’re already 30 ahead going into the fall,” said Clayton.

The historical data from the fire department, which goes back to 2008, shows the most calls in a single year was 124 in 2017.

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The 2021 report, which was presented to Lumby council on Monday, showed that July made up a majority of the calls for service for the year so far.

There were 15 calls made in the village consisting of five grass/bush/interface fires; three gas leaks; six fires and one non-fire.

Historically in the village, there tend to be no more than six or seven brush fires per year, but already in 2021, there have been seven.

Meantime, the number of false alarms the fire department has responded to in 2021 has been three, well bellow the 13 recorded in 2020 and the 15 in 2019.

In the rural Lumby area, there were 14 calls for service, one for a fire; three to assist ambulance operations; and ten classified as ‘other’ in July.

There were also two responses to incidents outside of the district.

Clayton said his department has one water tender and two firefighters supporting the White Rock Lake firefighting efforts near Westside Road, which will count as just one call for service in his report.

As the dry hot conditions continue to bake the region, Clayton advises the public to take preventative measures to protect their properties through FireSmart initiatives.

“Clear dead brush, don’t pile firewood against your house, make sure your gutters are clean, keep that area immediately around the house free of combustibles,” advised Clayton.

As the season changes to fall, Clayton tells Vernon Matters he expects to have a few ‘smoke chases.’

“Once people start their wood heaters and everything, and if we don’t get significant rain, then people are going to see smoke and probably call us because they don’t know what it is, which is quite common in the fall,” said Clayton.

“But as to other calls, what we get is anybody’s guess. I’ve tried coming up with a kind of prediction on different years, and there’s no way to predict what kind of calls we get at any given time.”

Clayton added that heading into the remainder of the year, people burning wood should use clean wood, and also asks that people, especially with rural properties, clear their driveways of snow in the winter so engines can easily access the properties in the case of an emergency.