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Date: 2/2/2022
NORTHAMPTON – After a quieter 2020 due to public spaces being closed during the pandemic, the Northampton Fire Department received a record-setting number of calls from residents throughout 2021.
In total, the department received 7,645 calls for various incidences, whether they be for fires, emergency medical services, hazardous conditions, service calls, good intent calls, false alarms, severe weather and others. Comparatively, the department received a total of 6,733 calls in 2020.
“We saw a couple of months in 2020 where we weren’t moving,” said Fire Chief Jon Davine, when talking about the smaller volume of calls in 2020. “People weren’t coming out of the house.” Naturally, with the increased amount of foot traffic, as well as with people returning to work, the number of calls rose tremendously in 2021.
A big reason for this, according to Davine, was because Pioneer Valley EMS, a private service provider in the city, is only operating at limited times of the day. “We are picking up a lot of the calls they would have taken care of,” said Davine. “They were doing transfers out of the nursing homes … they were doing transfers out of Cooley Dickinson Hospital on to Baystate. They were pretty much, for everyone around us, their No. 2 call for mutual aid.”
Without Pioneer Valley having a more of an imprint on receiving calls, Davine said that a lot of the mutual aid and ambulance calls have “skyrocketed.” Just these past couple months, Davine said that the city has gone out with an ambulance a minimum of 40 times.
According to the Northampton website, the city saw a slightly higher number of calls in 2019 with 7,394, but still less than 2021’s total. At a couple points throughout 2021, Davine said the department would average 20 to 21 calls every 24 hours. “The ambulances are getting busy, and we’re still dealing with COVID-19,” said Davine.
Out of the 7,645 calls in 2021, 5,701 involved emergency medical services, which Davine attributed to the pandemic and people just being more cautious when they test positive for COVID-19.
The Police Department, meanwhile, received 27,530 calls in 2021, which was actually a slight drop compared to 2020 during which the department saw 29,078 calls. In 2019, the department was at 35,445 calls, and 38,703 calls in 2018. “2020 was obviously an anomaly with COVID, as was a good portion of 2021,” said Police Chief Jody Kasper.
According to Kasper, the closure of bars and restaurants throughout the pandemic time period were a big reason why there was less call activity. The city just implemented a Department of Community Care at the end of 2021 to assist with calls relating to mental health, substance use, or social service-related requests. The department was created by Northampton’s Policing Review Commission.
According to Kasper, it is too early to tell how much the new department will impact calls.