By KEVIN NEVERS

For the second year in a row, the Chesterton Fire Department has broken its record for annual calls.

In 2007 the CFD responded to 1,141 calls, compared to the previous record of 1,059, set in 2006, an increase of 8 percent.

Of those 1,141 calls, four were structure fires, compared to nine in 2006, a decrease of 56 percent.

Other categories of call in 2006:

•664 EMS assists or 58 percent of the total, compared to 605 in 2006, an increase of 10 percent.

•78 vehicle accidents or 7 percent of the total, compared to 109 in 2006, a decrease of 28 percent.

•71 automatic alarms.

•47 public service or good intent calls.

•38 dispatched but canceled en route.

•33 mutual aid calls.

•25 carbon monoxide alarms.

•25 mutual aid on standby.

•23 downed lines.

•22 smoke scares.

•17 natural gas leaks.

•17 vehicle fires.

•15 trash, rubbish, dumpster, or compactor fires.

•13 open burns.

•12 arcing electrical lines or other electrical problem.

•Nine hazardous material spills.

•Six brush fires.

•Six general crash clean-ups.

•Four cooking fires.

•On three occasions, no incident found.

•Two chimney fires.

•One each of storage fire, mailbox fire, tree tire, and unspecified fire.

•One explosion (no fire).

•One water rescue.

•One wrong location.

No breakdown of calls outside the Town of Chesterton was currently available, nor was an average response time, Fire Chief Warren “Skip” Highwood told the Chesterton Tribune.

Last year the CFD devoted a total of 6,772.5 man-hours to training: 2,531.5 man-hours to structural firefighting; 1,680 to outside training; 687.5 to EMS training; 678 to engineer training; 664 to officer training; and 531.5 to miscellaneous training.

In 2007 the CFD also devoted 152.4 man-hours to fire prevention education and taught a total of 1,379 children and 314 adults. In addition, the CFD devoted 42.5 man-hours to CPR training and taught a total of 510 participants in eighth-grade health classes at Chesterton Middle School.

2/28/2008