With a growing call volume in one Cincinnati neighborhood, the interim fire chief is asking the City Council to build a new fire station to meet the areas needs.
“We found out that the Westwood area, their runs basically went through the roof to the point where they are not going to be able to sustain that, and within 24 hours, they were making anywhere from 25 to 30 runs a day,” Interim Fire Chief Steve Breitfelder told the Public Safety Committee, according to Fox19.com.
The discovery was made after data from the year-old Automatic Vehicle Locator showed a high call volume as units from surrounding stations continue to be pulled into the neighborhood to respond to 9-1-1 calls.
“A lot of those runs, and these are just estimated numbers, five to 10 of them after midnight,” Breitfelder said.
The chief said they've added an engine, staffed by overtime members, to help with the rise in calls but it is not sustainable with the current model.
He asked for a new station to respond with an engine company to help balance calls in the Westwood and Price Hill neighborhoods.
“If we were to do that, it would be around 4,500 runs versus 60-6,700 that engine 35 was going to make,” the interim chief said. “So, that’s a lot better. It’s a more sustainable number of runs per company.”
The City Council is looking at costs and what the budget will allow.
