St. Marys Fire Department responds to record-breaking number of calls for service last year

Fire chief says number of fires has doubled over previous two years

By Galen Simmons

The St. Marys Fire Department has once again broken a record for the number of emergency calls for service they responded to in a year.

At the Jan. 27 St. Marys council meeting, Fire Chief Phil West presented his department’s 2025 statistics and reviewed the year as a whole with councillors. According to his report, local firefighters responded to 179 emergency calls for service, up from the department’s previous record of 162 in 2024.

“The biggest category that grew was fires,” West said. “We’re working with the team to increase public awareness; we’re doing more press releases, social media bursts and campaigns on fire safety.”

According to department statistics, the highest volume of calls last year involved alarm-system malfunctions including out-of-date warnings at 38, motor-vehicle collisions at 27, fires at 26 and carbon-monoxide alarms at 18. On average, 16 firefighters attended each call.

Broken down month-to-month, firefighters were at their busiest in December last year, responding to 28 emergency calls for service, nine of which West said were for motor-vehicle collisions attributed to winter storms and poor driving conditions. August saw the second-highest volume of calls at 20 and February followed closely with 18.

“It seemed like we were getting call volumes under control and then December came along and we had 28 calls,” West said. “We are working on a few things to reduce call volume. Whether they’re going to work right away, likely not, but we have modified a few things.”

Chief fire prevention officer Chris St. Clair was also busy last year, completing 303 fire inspections – up from 243 in 2024. Of those inspections in 2025, 151 were routine, 105 were follow-ups, 22 were by request, 15 were for licensing, six were to address a safety concern and four were motivated by complaints.

“We’re … making sure we’re highlighting places that haven’t been inspected for quite some time,” West said. “If you look at the trend in follow-ups, there’s a huge jump in follow-ups (from 51 in 2024). That means that, in summary, we’re writing up things that business owners have to do to be compliant and we’re following up on those requirements. So, they could be ‘blocks exit doors,’ not having their private hydrants tested, their exit lights are burnt out, so we’re doing a really good job on inspecting businesses thoroughly and making sure that deficiencies are brought up.”

“It’s really nice to hear you comment on the inspections that were done and the things that haven’t been done for a while, and going in and all the follow-up,” Coun. Fern Pridham said. “So just a good job throughout the year by the new inspector.”

Looking ahead, West said the department is preparing to host an ice-rescue training course with the Ontario Fire College in February at the town’s swimming quarry that firefighters from St. Marys, Stratford and Woodstock will participate in.