Steinbach Fire Chief Kel Toews is urging us to call 911 during an emergency, and not the fire department.

“It’s kind of alarming that people would be calling the fire hall as opposed to 911 but it’s happening with more and more frequency,” says Toews.

He’s not sure why there’s been such an increase of these calls but speculates it might have something to do with their increased presence on social media, giving people the false impression that the fire hall is staffed around the clock.

“We’re not a full-time department, it’s not manned 24/7 so if you’re calling here, you may not even get someone answering it,” Toews says.

Another reason he gives for calling 911 is that the dispatchers there have easy access to all emergency response teams for specific locations.

“We had one (call) recently where somebody called that their house was a bit smokey. And it turned out, after they were directed to call 911, it wasn't even in our area.

“When you call 911, 911 knows where you're calling from, knows which fire department to dispatch, it’s quick. They've got access to police and ambulance at their fingertips as well. It's your one stop shop and they’ll get the right people out to you.”

Toews also encourages us to check with our alarm companies to make sure that 911 is listed as the number to call when an alarm is triggered.

He says they get a surprising number of phone calls from alarm companies, and again, Toews says 911 is the number to contact for emergency response.