Dormont VFD Off To Busy Start In 2011

Editor’s note: Patch will provide monthly reports on Dormont Volunteer Fire Department calls.

The year has gotten off to a busy start for the with firefighters responding to 20 percent more calls this January than last.

The department responded to 41 calls last month, Chief Denny Davis said. Last January, the department responded to 34 calls.

Davis said he can't pinpoint a reason calls are increasing, though the department has been responding to more false alarms lately.

"It's just the nature of the business," he said.

The most serious call, and the only structure fire this year, was a Jan. 17 house fire on Biltmore Avenue, though no one was injured.

The Allegheny County Fire Marshall hasn’t completed a report yet, but Davis said the fire was apparently caused by a fault in either a bathroom light fixture or old wiring.

“A lot of old wiring isn’t made as good as it is nowadays,” he said.

Of the other 40 calls, Davis said most were general calls, such as for alarms in businesses going off. The department responded to seven accidents, none of which involved serious injury.

Dormont also responded to seven mutual aid calls, all in Mount Lebanon.

The department is also getting the last of its latest donation request mailings returned. Typically, Davis said, about 40 to 60 percent of the mailings sent to Dormont residents and businesses are returned.

The department won't know how much the mailings bring in until they're tallied in June, he said. The amount typically raised varies, he said, but is usually around $20,000 to $28,000.