(Arnolds Park)– Calls for service for fire departments in the lakes corridor continues to increase year over year. Arnolds Park-Okoboji Fire Chief Chris Yungbluth has the numbers for that department from 2021…
“We did run a total of 253 emergency calls between our EMS folks and our Fire Department and Dive Team, and so that keeps us pretty busy. That’s not the busiest department in the county by any means but it keeps our folks busy. And then overall we actually had 307 events which includes like our dive training, our fire department training, and then we have a lot of special events that we go out and have people staff for, so. It really keeps us busy throughout the year, keeps our people, I mean if you average it out it’s a little less than one, I know, but it’s almost once a day that volunteers are out there working hard in the community. And I know the numbers are real similar for the rest of the departments in the county as well.”
Yungbluth explains how that compares to the previous year of 2020…
“It is up a little bit. We’re up from 226 in 2020 to 253 overall emergency calls. That’s kind of the trend we’re seeing is that as Dickinson county grows in population just a little bit each time, so does our call volume. And then, you know, they keep building different buildings in our service area as well that cater to tourists and visitors to the area and so that also increases our response and call volume as well as us covering the lakes with our water rescue folks so all that adds up and keeps our folks real busy throughout the summer and throughout the whole year, actually.”
Youngbluth adds the peak call volumes occur during the summer months and again during Winter Games Weekend in late January. He presented the statistics to the Arnolds Park and Okoboji City Councils at their respective meetings earlier this week.
