Excerpts from centralillinoisproud.com:
Peoria firefighters responded to almost 5% more calls in 2023 than in 2022, the department said Wednesday in their annual report. Of the 21,267 calls, nearly 80% were medical in nature. Only 4% or about 851 calls, were fire-related.
Response times, a key point of contention the department has had when it comes to budgetary issues, were less than six minutes for medical calls and about 10 minutes for fires.
Of the fire incidents in 2023, 488 were structure fires, 88 were vehicle fires, 82 were outside rubbish fires, and 67 were natural vegetation fires.
The report also highlighted the city’s effort to investigate the cause of fires. In 2023, more than 153 fires were investigated for possible arson, and of that total, 52 were deemed to be intentionally set. The rest were either accidental or undetermined. Nine remain under investigation.
Peoria’s 12 fire stations are staffed by 185 uniformed personnel with 12 engines, three aerials, five specialty teams, and two certified arson dogs.
As part of their efforts to make the community safer, the fire department helped install 190 smoke detectors and 77 CO detectors across the city last year.
The full report is here.
