3 blazes in 1 night push Dayton fire crews toward call volume record, captain says

A disastrous house fire on West Hillcrest Avenue, where more than 100 quail, two dogs and seven cats perished, was one of three blazes Dayton fire crews responded to Wednesday night and added to the number of runs the department said is on pace to set a record for this year.

>> RELATED: More than 100 animals perish in Dayton house fire

In 2022, the department is averaging 100 to 130 calls a day, Capt. Brad French told News Center 7′s Molly Koweek.

“It definitely can be some long days and long nights for our members,” he said, noting that he expects the department’s call volume to top 41,000 by the end of this year.

“And that’s by far our busiest,” he said.

The department responded to about 39,000 calls in 2017.

French attributes the increase to the added emergency medical squad runs related to the opioid epidemic.

“We’re not really sure” what’s driving the call volume for this year, the captain said.

“Like I said, we do data analytics all the time and try to trend these. if we were able to say, hey, this is the one thing that’s causing our call volume to go up in the EMS category or fire category, certainly we would do our best to try to focus on that. But really, the increase has been across the spectrum.”

The high call volume can be taxing on fire crews, he said, noting, “Obviously, the fire trucks don’t drive themselves and the ambulances don’t go anywhere by themselves.”

Of course, “everybody’s going to rise to the occasion and be there for the citizens of the city of Dayton when they call, 24/7 365. And we’ll do it with the resources that we have to the best of our ability.”

And it’s not like one or two very busy months are responsible for the higher call volume, he said, pointing out that the fire department has hit call volume records in six of the nine full months of 2022.