At New Kingstown, part of the pride we share is providing "staffed" apparatus. We also know that given the lack of volunteers at many locations, our situation is not normal. With departments loosing manpower right and left, we have been able to retain and even add members over the past couple of years; a situation that is certainly ever-evolving. The fire service has always been "hills and valleys" and we all know that.

During 2024, our average staffing was 12.2 members per call. While we are very appreciative of all of our members, this number is somewhat skewed. This captures the average of all members that respond, including juniors, exterior, interior, fire police, and those who cover the station-all these members receive "credit" for the call or calls. We do not track members who are not qualified, such as our support staff folks.

The attached report shows "interior qualified members when the Engine or Squad was first out". By month across the top, and number of seats available down the left (seven is the most seats we have on one rig and that is the Squad). There were 736 calls tracked in this manually entered graph. We are proud that we were able to respond with four (4) or more interior qualified members 88% of the time. There were 89 calls where there were three (3) or less members on the first out rig. Included in this report, is our paid driver/operator. There was a definite improvement shown over 2023. Thanks to Captain Toot for his monthly work on this report.

While we realize this can change overnight, we are very proud to be able to post statistics, such as these. It is a true testament to the time and dedication that our members place into the fire company.

We have seen several area departments posting different stats and because of this, we will do even better with reporting for 2025 to capture even more stats. This is not the end of stat posting, so stay tuned!