It was a pretty average year for the Okotoks Fire Department in 2018, with call volumes consistent with the prior year .

Ken Thevenot, Okotoks Fire Chief, says there has been a slight decrease in calls in the last two years.

"In 2016 we had 995 responses, in 2017 we had 1083, and then in 2018 we had 1081. Pretty close for the last couple years, it's gone up slightly from 2016," he said.

Thevenot says this is partly due to the public awareness campaigns the fire department offers.

"I'm glad they didn't go up too much. You hope that some of our public awareness through our commercial inspections and our home inspection program are helping out with keeping some of the calls down. As well as our open houses, emergency preparedness month and fire prevention month. We hope that reaching out to some of the residents will help keep the calls down," he said.

He adds medical responses make up approximately 40 per cent, followed by alarm system activations at about 23 per cent, 15 per cent motor vehicle accidents, and actual fire responses at 11 per cent. The remaining 11 per cent come from public hazard and public service calls.

Last week, the Okotoks Fire Department responded to 20 calls, eight alarm system activations, eight medical, three motor vehcile accidents, and oner public service response.

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