With just over 1,200 total calls for the calendar year of 2024, Escalon Consolidated Fire Protection District officials reported that 54 percent of those incidents were within the City of Escalon.

Fire Chief Rick Mello released the incident breakdown for last year on Monday, Feb. 10.

There were 649 calls in the city during the year, said Mello, with 496 incidents in the rural area, accounting for 41 percent of the department’s calls.

The remaining five percent – 56 calls – were for automatic aid and mutual aid.

Mello pointed to August as being the busiest month in 2024, when the department responded to a total of 132 calls. November was the slowest month, with just 75 calls logged.

Firefighters responded to a total of 1,201 calls for the year. There was a total of 738 medical aids, said Mello, with the department also responding to 132 motor vehicle accidents. There were 68 fires and 263 ‘miscellaneous’ calls.

Mello said the busiest month for fires was October, when department members responded to 13 fire calls. Two months, March and April, saw just one fire call logged by the department each of those months.

Busiest month for motor vehicle accident responses was August, when firefighters handled 18 calls while the lowest was February with six. August was also the busiest month for medical aid calls, the department logging 84 responses that month and the lowest medical aid total was in June, with 44. Medical aid responses accounted for 61.4 percent of the department’s calls for the year.

A total of six months saw the department responding to 100 or more calls, with 101 in February, 102 in June, 103 in July, 132 in August, 117 in October and 105 in December.

Overall, the calls for service in the city were down slightly from year to year, with the 1,201 in 2024 comparing to the 1,220 calls logged in 2023.