Keizer Fire Calls Surge in Recent Weeks (VIDEO)

Increasing medical calls are increasing the load for this mostly volunteer fire department.

Photo by: Tim King

(KEIZER, Ore.) - Firefighters in Keizer have been putting long hours in, as an unusually high number of calls continue to place increased demands on their mostly volunteer agency. Fire Spokesman Jim Trett says numbers are far above last year.

“The first quarter of 2007 just saw a tremendous surge, 17 percent; we’re up to 944 calls for the quarter, which is a call about every two and a half hours. For one station, that’s keeping us fairly busy.”

Trett says their volunteer firefighters that man the fire station every day from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM sometimes have to stay up all night on fire calls, then report the next day for a full day’s work.

“They’re getting taxed, equipment is getting taxed, I mean they’re on the road all the time. We’re also seeing an increase in when we run multiple calls, two calls at once, and even three calls at once. We had a major fire, major fire here happen about three weeks ago when we had two other medical calls at one time. So it taxed manpower, resources, we had to call in outside agencies to cover some of those calls and help us with the fire, so we’re seeing that more and more.”

One thing that may help Keizer Fire in the near future, involves expanding the hours of use of equipment already in place.

“Currently the board is looking at trying to bring a second ambulance up 12 hours a day, seven days a week, instead of the four days a week that it’s up right now, that would take some of the load off of our medic crews more of the time, but other than that they’re just trying to look at the funding that we know is going to be there in the next couple of years and that doesn’t allow for a lot of increases.”

A place where Keizer Fire can beef up its numbers without seeking additional taxpayer support is in the ranks of volunteers.

“Always could use volunteers, it is a huge time commitment, I mean when I started 34 years ago or something like that, you have a call every couple of weeks and people were willing and able and willing to give their time. Now, with their increased training demands that a re being placed on them and of course the increased call demand, its just harder to get them and keep them. They come and they want to help. Some of them do a really good job and stay a long time, and others just can’t do it, so we’re always looking for good volunteers.”

Volunteer work may be hard, but Trett says the reward it brings is inspiring.

“This is one where, when they need you, they need you now. And they need some special expertise, and when you know that you’ve provided that and maybe saved a life, or even made the suffering a little bit less, it gives you a tremendous high and a tremendous feeling and I think that’s what gets most people.”

Finally, residents should know that Keizer Fire is available for residents that want to take their own personal fire education to the next level.

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WATCH THE VIDEO REPORT BELOW FROM SALEM-NEWS.COM'S BONNIE KING:

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Bonnie, great report, thanks for showing us more about our community fire agency's struggle to maintain excellence.

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