2011 Fire Incident Responses Up in DeKalb County

The DeKalb County Fire Department has compiled its 2011 Incident Response Summary.
The best news in this report is that DeKalb County did not record any fire-related deaths in 2011. Overall, 2011 fire incident responses in the county were up by 54 calls from 2010. In 2010, the department responded to a total of 392 fire incidents. The department responded to 446 fire incident responses in 2011. This count does not include the 357 rural medical first responder calls that county fire department personnel responded to.
DeKalb County Fire Chief Donny Green said that the most marked increase in incidents is in the “alarms” category. This category captures responses to automated alarms such as fire/smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms. Chief Green said that this is expected because of the increased population of absentee homeowners around the Center Hill Lake area. According to Green, these property owners increasingly are using automated alarm systems to monitor their property, as their primary residences are elsewhere.
With DeKalb County’s rural population growing at rates higher than the cities’ population growth within DeKalb County, the department continues to strive to prevent fires and fire related incidents by using prevention and educational measures. DeKalb County Fire Department’s Fire Prevention and Safety Officer, Lt. Brad Mullinax, says that preventing incidents is much more economical than responding to them.
The chart as shown above provides a breakdown of each type of fire incident response that the department responded to in 2011.