With the ringing of a new year, the Great Bend Fire Department thought residents might be curious about the number of calls it handled in 2023, Fire Chief Brent Smith said. The information was presented to the City Council.

“We thought you may wonder just how many calls we respond to in one year,” Smith said. This is the number of calls from Jan. 1 through Dec. 18.  

In all, the Great Bend Fire Department made 2,583 fire and Emergency Medical Services runs in that time span, The numbers break down as follows:

• Fires – 97, or 3.76% of the calls.

• Over-pressure ruptures, explosions, over-heating with no fire – two, or 0.08% of the calls.

• Rescue and emergency medical service – 2,220, or 85.95% of the calls.

• Hazardous conditions with no fire – 89, or 3.45% of the calls.

• Service calls – 22, or 0.85% of the calls.

• Good intent calls – 75, or 2.9% of the calls.

• False alarms/false calls – 75, or 2.9% of the calls.

• Severe weather and natural disasters – one, or 0.04% of the calls.

• Special incident type – two, or 0.08% of the calls.

In addition, “your firefighters also dedicated 5,965 hours collectively in 2023 to training to better ourselves for the people we serve,” Smith said.

Ongoing improvements

Improvements are taking place at the department’s training facility behind Fire Station 2 on West 10th Street, Smith said. They are working with Hazmat Response, their neighbor to the west, which has donated time and equipment to move dirt and haul buildings to the burn facility.

This is a multi-phase project, Smith said. Plans include adding grain elevator rescue props and some confined space set-ups, hazardous material facilities and a railroad tank car.

Smith said the weather has slowed progress on the work. But, his crew hopes to be back at it and complete the project by March.

In addition, concrete work is planned at Station 2, he said. This is partly for work on the driveway, as well as for the training center.