Firefighting actually represents a relatively small portion of the work of a typical fire department in today’s world.  The number of residential and commercial fires has steadily decreased over the years, due to a variety of factors such as improvements in construction, a greater public awareness of the risk factors leading to fires and a significant reduction in smoking nationwide.

Fires, however, are only some of the emergencies to which the Cardinal Joint Fire District responds. In fact, more than 70% of the Fire Department’s emergency responses are calls for medical aid, including illnesses/accidents at home or work and injuries resulting from vehicle accidents.  Other calls for emergency response involve the release of hazardous materials, response to fire alarms and other calls for public assistance.

Firefighters also spend quite a bit of time maintaining equipment, doing routine public safety inspections for businesses, training for all types of emergency responses and filling out the reports and paperwork associated with these activities.