There are no plans to build a fire station in Kinnegad despite a 260 per cent increase in its population in the last 10 years, Westmeath County Council learned at its monthly meeting in Mullingar this week (February 23 ).
This was revealed during a very informative annual presentation from the county’s chief fire officer, Dave Stuart, to the council, on the state of play of the local fire services in 2008.
During a questions and answers session at the end of the presentation, Cllr Mick Dollard enquired as to the possibility of a new station in the eastern town on account of the recent, large increase in population but was told there was no need for this.
“Because of the new roads, Kinnegad is now nearer by, timewise,” said Mr Stuart.
“Despite the population rise, the type of incident, however, hasn’t increased.”
He explained how all the new housing estates had been built to a very modern fire retardant standard and would all be equipped with smoke alarms.
“Modern housing estates are much less risk than, say, a nursing home,” he said.
“In my time I cannot see a fire station being built in Killucan or Kinnegad.”
Earlier in the presentation, Mr Stuart had told the gathered councillors that the average turn-out time in Athlone and Mullingar last year - “from pager going off to rolling out of the station” - was six minutes and 12 seconds and this accounted for over 800 of the 995 calls received by the service last year.
The fastest call-out in Westmeath during 2008 was four minutes 18 seconds, but he declined to say from which of the four stations this was.
He did add it was “nearly the quickest in the country”, a record which came in at four minutes 12 seconds last year.
Of the 1,000 or so calls received last year, over a quarter were for chimney fires, 14 per cent were to car crashes, 10 per cent were car fires and 10 per cent were house fires.
Forty calls were false alarms with good intentions, but at least 30 were malicious.
Mr Stuart told the meeting that all calls were taped and all were treated seriously.
“Even if you hear teenagers laughing in the background you have to take it seriously,” he said.
Along with the actual fighting of fires, the county’s fire service looks after licensing certs for all public buildings, as well as pre-incident planning and major emergency planning and is continuing its school visiting policy.
Last year the fire service visited 68 primary schools and saw 1,648 third class pupils.
“If you visit all third classes, eventually you get everybody,’ said Mr Stuart.
The fire service also handed out over 200 smoke alarms to the elderly and isolated of the county last year.
Next year there are plans to take the education message into secondary schools in conjunction with the Gardai, the council and the National Safety Authority: “to try to get through to young fellas”.
Mr Stuart confirmed this would include “quite graphic” video footage.
“Fellas are notorious,” he said.
“I have been to a number of events where they didn’t really need to die.”
