Countywide : Fire Dept. Busier in First 6 Months of ’92

The Orange County Fire Department received more calls in every category except false alarms during the first half of 1992 compared to the same time period the previous year.

As of June 30, the Fire Department had responded to 21,936 calls, up more than a thousand from 1991, spokeswoman Kathleen Cha said. The department covers 16 of the county’s cities and all unincorporated areas. It also provides aid to other areas when necessary.

“More people are home now, there’s more activity going on, so there’s more room for careless behavior,” said Cha, noting an increase in electrical fires that she attributes to a lack of maintenance by people who own old homes. “We also have more people too.”

There were 33 more fires and explosions--a total of 1,388 during the first half of the year. In addition, fire officials reported 55 ruptures of pipes, almost twice the number of incidents in 1991. Meanwhile, there were 12,251 emergency medical rescues, up 74 from the previous year.

Officials said natural disasters more than quadrupled--from four in 1991 to 17 this year.

“What we are seeing is that people are reporting more than what they had before,” Cha said. “We’ve had earthquakes, we’ve had flood problems--these kinds of things relate to that.”

There were also more service calls and more calls reporting hazardous conditions that did not result in fire. “Good intent” calls, in which neighbors report an incident but firefighters find no problem once they arrive, were up almost 30% to 4,539. False alarms fell from 1,714 in 1991 to 1,560 this year.