Source: Why We Need to Take the ‘Fire’ Out of ‘Fire Department’
Firefighters don’t actually fight that many fires these days. It’s time to re-think how we deliver costly emergency services.
In 1980, according to the National Fire Protection Association, the nation’s 30,000 fire departments responded to 10.8 million emergency calls. About 3 million were classified as fires. By 2013, total calls had nearly tripled to 31.6 million, while fire calls had plummeted to 1.24 million, of which just 500,000 of were actual structure fires.