Nearly 1,000 call outs for Kerry Fire service

STATISTICS REVEAL WELCOME DROP IN THE LEVEL OF INCIDENTS REQUIRING FIRE SERVICE ASSISTANCE

THE Kerry Fire and Rescue Service attended more than 950 incidents in 2016 according to statistics released in Kerry County Council’s (KCC) Annual Report for 2016.

Of the 958 incidents the services attended last year, 135 were related to road traffic collisions, an increase of 12 per cent on the 2015 figure.

There is positive news to be taken from the statistics, however, with the total number of incidents attended by fires services dropping by over 150. There was a 10 per cent drop in the number of fire incidents, and the number of gorse fires dropped by almost 30 per cent, from 223 to 161. The number of chimney fires also fell slightly, from 141 to 123.

“The Kerry Fire Service public awareness campaign continued to assist in efforts to reduce the number of gorse fires, and the primary schools programme continued with basic fire instruction, and fire safety packs were provided by Fire Service personnel to primary school students, “the report outlined.

“Under the Smoke Alarm Scheme, a further 850 alarms were procured for distribution to vulnerable members of the community, and the upgrading of the Kerry Fire Service fleet continued to ensure the average fleet age profile is maintained at below nine years and that the working life of frontline appliances is below 15 years.”

The report’s expanded details showed that it takes about six and a half minutes on average to mobilise fire brigades across the county’s part-time stations, but the first attendance at a fire-related incident took more than 20 minutes in almost one in five cases. This figure is just under 13 per cent for cases not related to fire.

The report, which was launched last Thursday (June 29) at Council Chambers in Tralee, also outlines a number of statistics in respect of building control activities, with KCC receiving over 400 commencement/seven-day notices in 2016. Of the 281 new buildings notified in 2016, 37 were inspected by officers, with an overall total of 217 building control inspections carried out.

The county’s second line emergency service, Kerry Civil Defence, covered at 74 different events in 2016, including Listowel Races, the Ring of Kerry Cycle, the Rose of Tralee Festival, and a number of the county’s 1916 commemorations.

The recent dramatic scenes as the Kerry Fire Service battled gorse fires in the Killorglin area.