‘Knock on wood, 2018 hasn’t been as bad, but overall call volume is through the roof’

Bellingham Fire and Whatcom County Fire District 8 have been busy the past couple of years, with an 18.9 percent increase in fire responses from 2016 to 2017.

“Business, unfortunately, is up, and there are a lot of different reasons,” Assistant Chief Bill Hewett told The Bellingham Herald last week. “The number of fires we’ve been responding to has been going up every year, and it was up pretty dramatically last year. And last year, we had a noticeable number of fire loss fires — fires that caused damages in the ($10,000) to $300,000 range.”

The total number of fire responses reported by Bellingham Fire and Whatcom County Fire District 8 grew from 439 in 2016 to 522 in 2017, according to statistics reported in the city of Bellingham’s annual report for the district. Those two years are the only years statistics from District 8 (Marietta) were combined with Bellingham Fire, but the city of Bellingham already showed a rise in fire responses every year between 2012 (266) to 2015 (332), according to those year’s annual reports.

Perhaps there’s no better time, then, to celebrate Fire Prevention Week.

In a press release last week, the Washington State Fire Marshal’s Office announced it is joining the National Fire Protection Association “to educate the public about basic but essential ways to quickly and safely escape a home fire,” during Fire Prevention Week, which runs through Saturday.

As part of the week, all eight Bellingham Fire and District 8 firehouses will hold open houses from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, City Fire Marshal Ron Richard told The Bellingham Herald last week. Fire personnel will be available to answer questions when they’re not on calls during the event, Richard said.

“This is something we’ve been doing annually for three or four years now to promote fire safety in the city of Bellingham and District 8,” Richard said, “and this year, we decided to make it part of Fire Prevention Week.”

Of the 522 fires Bellingham Fire and District 8 responded to last year, according to the annual report, 158 of them were structure fires — slightly down from 163 in 2016. Single-family or duplex homes were the most common with 55 (35 percent), the report said, though multi-family structure fires also were prevalent with 45 (29 percent). Commercial (18) and industrial (5) buildings accounted for another 14 percent of the structure fires.

Overall, Bellingham Fire and District 8 responded to 18,063 incidents in 2017, more than a third of which (12,653) were EMS calls — up from 16,036 incidents and 11,899 EMS calls in 2016.

“The number of calls each unit has been receiving has been very high,” Hewett said. “Knock on wood, 2018 hasn’t been as bad, but overall call volume is through the roof.”

Fire Prevention Week

When: Oct. 7-13

Locally: The Bellingham Fire Department and Whatcom County District 8 will celebrate by offering open houses at all eight stations from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13. Stations are located at:

▪ Station 1: 1800 Broadway

▪ Station 2: 1590 Harris Ave.

▪ Station 3: 1111 Billy Frank Jr. St.

▪ Station 4: 2306 Yew St.

▪ Station 5: 3314 Northwest Ave.

▪ Station 6: 4060 Deemer Road

▪ Station 31: 752 Marine Drive

▪ Station 34: 2600 McKenzie Road