The numbers are in, and they show that Hanceville’s four-employee fire department saw its busiest year ever in 2019, responding to more calls than at any time in the city’s 140-year history.
Assistant fire chief Bart Absher briefed the Hanceville City Council on a by-the-numbers year in review Thursday at the council’s regular meeting, reporting a total of 1,301 inbound calls during the period between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of last year.
That’s 151 more than the 1,150 calls the department received in 2018 — a year that fire officials considered busy when they recapped the numbers in January of last year. “It was the busiest year we ever had — in history; not just since chief [Roger] Green took over,” Absher said of the 2019 totals.