ELY – The Ely Fire Department experienced a surging volume of fire and medical calls over the last three years, according to a report delivered by Chief David Marshall at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
In 2021, the all-volunteer crew was called out to 329 fire and medical calls, up from 240 in 2020 and 183 in 2019.
Marshall attributed the increasing number of responses to medical emergencies, as many as 244 last year.
“We’re on a trend, and not necessarily a good trend,” Marshall told the city council members .“The number of calls is increasing dramatically, and certainly COVID-19 is factoring into that as the coronavirus pandemic has increased our responses.”
Marshall noted a slight discrepancy in last year’s response numbers.
“The Blueberry Fest windstorm was counted as one call for our members, but there were actually 13 separate calls to 911 dispatch that night,” he said.
The Greenwood Lake forest fire also kept the department busy last summer. The initial call was followed up by other non-emergency dispatches, including water truck calls. There were 376 total events tallied last year for fire department members, including as many as 60 training, meeting and other calls.
The total payroll was $86,510 in 2021, with $48,311 paid out for fire call responses. The officers were paid $19,070, and the chief was paid $14,350.
The average response rate for department members was at 38.4 percent last year, according to Marshall, who shoots for at least a 30-percent response rate from all members.
“Of the 72 fire calls, we had three members who had 50 calls or above, and seven members who answered at least 40 calls,” he said.
Marshall also pointed out that a majority of the department’s calls were for incidents inside the city limits.
“Calls outside of the city for help in Morse Township or Babbitt accounted for about 15 percent of our total calls last year,” he said.
Since the beginning of the new year, the fire department fought sub-zero and equipment freezing conditions to battle a house blaze on Jan. 5. The department was dispatched to a three-car head-on collision on Sheridan Street on Jan. 12. Earlier this week, firefighters responded to a house flooding incident because of a frozen water line.
Bucking decades of tradition, Marshall related that the fire department membership approved changing training nights from the third Wednesday of the month to the third Thursday of each month.
“This night just works better with our training resources,” he said.
The department continues to research options for purchase of a replacement ladder truck for 2022.
“We are working with two different vendors and looking at some different offerings,” he said.
Other business
In other business, the council:
• Approved the council and staff to attend the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities Legislative Action Day in St. Paul on March 2.
• Approved a recommendation from the Projects Committee to proceed with listing of Sibley Court lots with Jim Burke and Keller William for a seven-percent commission rate.
• Approved the sale of a lot at 40 N Klondike Rd. for $27,500.
• Approved the completion of the one-year probation periods for Ely police officers David Wimmer and Joseph Olufson.
• Authorized Police Chief Chad Houde to attend the Executive Training Institute Chief conference in Duluth, April 4-7.
• Changed the Feb. 1 council meeting to a 5 p.m. start time and a 6 p.m. end time due to state caucuses that night.
• Approved a resolution authorizing the Knights of Columbus Council 3238 to conduct Bingo on Feb. 13 and April 3.
• Heard from Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski who related an increasing number of water main breaks around the city and asked residential customers to monitor their water lines during the extended cold temperatures.