Southwest Louisiana fire agencies responded to a lot of emergencies in the last year and the Ward 6 Fire Department is hoping that the high volume of calls doesn’t trend into this year.
Responding to hundreds of emergency calls in 2022 has made it one of the busiest years for the Ward 6 Fire Protection District No. One, nearly doubling their average volume of yearly calls.
“We ran 580 [emergency calls] and on average we normally run about 300 to 350 calls,” Ward 6 fire chief Todd Parker said.
Parker explained of the 580 calls, most were in response to vehicle accidents involving injuries or in need of fire department services, along with grass and structure fires.
“The call volume has required us to rely on our neighboring departments through our mutual aid assets or through our automatic aid agreements,” he said.