The Steinbach Fire Department received a record number of calls last year. 2017 marked the first year ever that the department averaged more than one call per day.

Fire Chief Kel Toews says there was a total of 372 calls last year. That is up from 346 in 2016. It is also up from the previous record high of 353 in 2013.

Of those calls, 108 were for motor vehicle collisions.

"Surprisingly our motor vehicle accidents were down from last year," shares Toews. "There is actually a trend over the past five years where it has decreased almost every year in that five years. So that sort of surprised me."

The second highest call total was for false alarms with 84 last year. Toews notes that is about ten more than the previous year.

There were 21 structure fires in 2017, nearly identical to 2016. Toews says the most memorable fire they battled last year was on May 4th at the Eastman Recycling plant in Steinbach.

"It was a fairly large dollar loss," he says. "It was a bit of a scary fire at first when you pull up to it and see black smoke billowing out of the building."

Toews notes there was a big jump in the number of vehicle fires last year, with 15 of them. The previous year there were nine.

After dissecting the statistics, Toews says the number of calls within the city of Steinbach has remained steady over the last five years. He notes the big increase has come in their rural calls.

"A big help will be when Blumenort has their hall in operation," he says. "That will probably take seventy to eighty calls off our plate and that will again bring it down to a manageable number."

The Blumenort hall is expected to open sometime in 2019.

Meanwhile, Toews says there were five months last year that set a new record for number of calls in that particular month. One of those months was December when the Steinbach Fire Department was called out 36 times.

According to Toews, cold weather really doesn't result in more calls, but he says it does create more of a challenge for firefighters.

"Not only for the guys but also for the equipment, it's harder on equipment, water doesn't flow as well in cold weather," he points out. "It tends to freeze up."

Further to that, he says on December 21st, they were called out seven times. He says that is the highest number of unconnected calls they have ever had in a single day. Their first call December 21st was for a truck fire east of Steinbach at 1:22 am and the last call was to a house fire in Blumenort shortly before 10 pm. Toews says those are tough days on firefighters.

"It takes away from their private time and it's also tough on the employer of these people," says Toews. "We've got to start thinking of alternatives and how we can get our numbers down."

Toews notes this has become an issue province-wide and some departments have changed their protocols on how they roll out to minor collisions.

"We shouldn't discourage people from calling 911 but we can change our response protocol and we're looking at several options as far as that goes," he says.

Toews notes if the 911 operator is able to filter more of the calls, the fire department doesn't have to roll out its entire crew for a parking lot fender bender.