Total 2024 run numbers released

By Jacob Sturm
Staff Writer

Blanchard’s Fire Department offered totals for 2024 calls they responded to and compared it to some previous years through a department social media post earlier this month.
According to the post, the Blanchard Fire Department made 1,454 runs and saw a whopping 66% of those being due to medical calls.
In previous decades, Blanchard Fire Department employees had a much smaller amount of calls they responded to. Just take the data provided in the BFD post this week, which showed the Fire Department responded to 224 calls in 2004, and 990 calls in 2014 for comparison.
Charlie Largent, the Blanchard Fire Chief, attributed the increase in calls to the growth of the community.
Blanchard Fire Department boundaries have been the same since 2011. Largent spoke to the population of Blanchard being much smaller in 2000, with the jurisdictional area BFD has covered over 10,000 people.

“We’ve been working with the city to increase the full-time firefighting staff,” Largent said. “…We just recently completed Station No. 2, and we’re working on fully equipping it.”

Largent said the station, once it is finished being equipped, will have an engine, a tanker and an emergency response vehicle for medical calls.

Applications for volunteer firefighters are always open for the public, and those interested can apply by picking up an application and turning it back in at City Hall.

Blanchard had three new volunteers brought on for training this past week.