The Minot Fire Department responded to 461 incidents in January, a slight increase
from January 2023 when we responded to 433 incidents.
As expected, most of our incidents were EMS-related. EMS responses made up 76%
of all the incidents we responded to, 345 to be exact. The next highest incident
series category was false alarm/false calls.
Our firefighters were dispatched to 45 false alarm calls. Those false alarm calls
were due to either a smoke detector malfunction, sprinkler system malfunction, or
unintentional detector activation. Testing your smoke alarms should occur monthly,
and replaceable batteries should be changed yearly.
We had three fire-related incidents, two under the category of structure fires and
one vehicle that caught fire.
We strive to have quick turnout and response times for every incident. Our goal for
turnout time is 1 minute and 20 seconds (turnout time is the time it takes the
crews to be dispatched and change their status to responding). In January, our
turnout time was 1:20 or under for 359 out of 461 incidents.
Our response time goal is to be under five minutes (response time is the time from
the first rotation of the wheels of the fire engine to arrival at the incident address).
Some variables can impact response times, for example, weather and road
conditions. In January, we met our response time goal of under five minutes for 244
out of 461 incidents.