COVINGTON, Ky. - The Covington Fire Department made 6,024 “runs" in the last half of 2019, of which 78.25 percent were EMS-related, 8.28 percent were false alarms, and 0.73 percent (7/10 of 1 percent) were structure fires.

 

Furthermore, 2.17 percent of runs were made to neighboring cities as part of a Mutual Aid agreement.

 

Those numbers and more are part of new data recently made available on the City of Covington’s CovData page and requested by the elected Board of Commissioners as part of periodic reporting on City operations.

 

The data includes hard numbers on run volume, as well as details on the type of run (whether it was a vehicle fire, a bomb scare, a smoke detector malfunction, or a life squad run, for example). It also separates the calls by neighborhood, with those numbers broken down by type of call as well.

 

The numbers are from Fiscal Year ’19 (July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019) and from the first half of Fiscal Year ’20 (July 1, 2019, to Dec. 31, 2019) - which is where the 6,024 number was drawn.

 

Fire Chief Mark Pierce said he and City leaders regularly look at run numbers to guide decisions on where to invest fire and EMS resources and how much to invest. He said it’s remarkable how the total number of Fire Department runs has remained steady through the years, with 11,303 in FY ’15, 12,197 in FY ’16, 12,109 in FY ’17, 11,741 in FY ’18, and 11,900 in FY ’19.

 

“Despite improvements in technology and construction materials, despite changes in growth patterns in Covington, the need to have a well-equipped First Response team remains, year after year after year,” Pierce said.

 

The CovData reports are compiled by Todd Sink, the City’s Manager of Analytics & Intelligence.

 

“It’s all part of our continuing effort to not only use hard numbers to improve how the City provides public services but also to be open and transparent about operations,” Sink said.

 

The CovData site can be found HERE. The Annual Fire Report can be downloaded HERE. And the neighborhood breakdown of Fire Department runs can be downloaded HERE.

 

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