West Nipissing had 21 structure fires last year that resulted in $1.8 million in damages.
The results are slightly less than the number of structure fires from 2016 when the department tackled 22 such fires that resulted in the $2.1 million in damage.
All the numbers are contained in the West Nipissing Fire Department’s annual report as compiled by Fire Chief Richard Maranda.
In terms of responses, the department had 248 incidents during 2017 which was a 20 percent drop from 2016 when firefighters responded to 308 incidents.
The department’s total budget for 2017 was slightly more than $2 million.
However the department came in under budget by $92,227 because Maranda was off sick the last four months of the year and an equipment replacement purchase was delayed until his return.
Maranda’s report also points out that in some cases the average response time to a fire is high.
The Chief says that’s because sometimes firefighters have to travel a long distance when responding to a fire is in a rural area.