Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Oswego Fire Protection District sees record number of calls as area continues to grow

Transcript

Oswego Fire Protection District sees record number of calls as area continues to grow · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Auswego Fire Protection District sees record number of calls as
• 0:08
  area continues to grow. Written by Eric Shelkoff, This article
• 0:14
  is being read by an automated voice brought to you
• 0:17
  by Everlett. As as WeGo and the surrounding area continues
• 0:22
  to grow, the Aswego Fire Protection District is responding to
• 0:25
  more calls. Last year, the Aswego Fire Protection District had
• 0:29
  a record number of service calls, seven three hundred and
• 0:32
  sixty one to be exact. In twenty twenty four, the
• 0:35
  district had six nine hundred and ninety four calls. Just
• 0:40
  in the last five years, the number of calls the
• 0:42
  district receives has grown by more than one thousand. In
• 0:45
  twenty twenty the Aswego Fire Protection District responded to five thousand,
• 0:50
  seven hundred to one service calls. So the last several
• 0:54
  years have been really busy here. Oswego Fire Chief Joshua
• 0:57
  Flanders said he believes that growth has greatly contributed to
• 1:02
  the increase and calls the district as seen in the
• 1:04
  past few years. Kendall County's population has grown by eight
• 1:08
  point four per cent in the past few years, making
• 1:11
  it the fastest growing county in the state. Kendall County's
• 1:16
  estimated twenty hundred twenty six population is one hundred forty
• 1:19
  nine thousand, fifty five. Formed by referendum in nineteen thirty six,
• 1:24
  the Oswego Fire Protection District covers fifty two square miles
• 1:27
  of the northeast portion of Kendal County and about four
• 1:30
  square miles of mostly unincorporated industrial parks in north west
• 1:34
  Will County. Along with Oswego, the district serves unincorporated Boulder Hill,
• 1:40
  a large portion of Montgomery's south side, approximately one one
• 1:44
  two square miles of the Grande Park neighborhood in Plainfield,
• 1:47
  and a small neighborhood in Yorkville. The district looks to
• 1:51
  build a fifth fire station to keep up with growth
• 1:54
  in the area. In March twenty twenty four, the Oswego
• 1:57
  Village Board approved donating a part of land in the
• 2:00
  Wolf's Crossing corridor to the Oswego Fire Protection District for
• 2:04
  the station. Located at the southwest corner of Wolf's Crossing
• 2:09
  and De Vaux Drive, the parcel is approximately one acre
• 2:12
  in size. I feel like that's a critical location for
• 2:16
  the future, Flanders said, but it's clearly not the only
• 2:19
  place in the district where we're watching the growth and
• 2:22
  trying to forecast for the future. The majority of the
• 2:25
  calls the fire district responded to last year were medical calls.
• 2:29
  The district responded to five thousan fifty seven medical calls
• 2:32
  and fifty five building fires in twenty twenty five. In addition,
• 2:37
  the district responded to two hundred and sixty four car
• 2:40
  crashes without injuries and one hundred and eighty two car
• 2:43
  crashes with injuries, along with twenty one vehicle fires, one
• 2:47
  hundred gas leaks, and seventy five mutual aid incidents. Fortunately,
• 2:53
  the fire district has enough personnel to deal with the
• 2:56
  increasing number of calls. We are fully staffed for what
• 3:00
  we're authorized for as of last summer, which is the
• 3:03
  first time in several years, Flanders said. The district currently
• 3:09
  has eighty six full time employees, and there is a
• 3:11
  constant need for new firefighters. People retire and people unfortunately
• 3:16
  get hurt and can't come back, Flanders said, And then
• 3:19
  there's the growth in the area. If you want to
• 3:22
  be a firefighter, the growth around the Chicago Land area
• 3:27
  is definitely in your favor.