The numbers are in and the number of calls for the Okotoks Fire Department for the 3rd quarter are down from last year but the total calls for the year are still up from 2014.

Local fire crews responded to 257 calls from July to September down from 2014's 3rd quarter of 289 calls.

Fire Chief Ken Thevenot says despite the drop in total calls for the quarter, there hasn't been a drop in the types of calls the department received since 2009.

"Overall there hasn't been one specific area where we've responded to and its consistent over the last number of years and the percentages are very close on all of the increases in every area so to say one specific area is more than the others is not accurate."

Response numbers for the Okotoks Fire Department from 2014 to 2015's 3rd quarter. (Photo Courtesy of Okotoks Fire Department)

In 2015 the grand total of calls the fire department has them up over 70 calls from this time last year Thevenot says the decline in calls this 3rd quarter can be factored into Okotoks' continual growth.

"The more people you have, the more calls you're going to have as well," he says. "You can see that trend from 2009 right on through 2014 and 2015, the more people you have the more activities that are going on, the demographics of community has stayed the same we just have more people in the community."

Thevenot says he can see a slight decline in some types of calls they receive as a whole, but knows those numbers change within a couple weeks worth of calls into the 4th quarter.

You can see alarm system activations are down, motor vehicle accidents are down as well quite a bit actually from last year at this time, we had a few different events last year as to why our numbers were high in 2014 like the snowfall incident in September."

Currently the Fire Department has responded to 818 calls in 2015 to the 743 calls that were responded to at the same time in 2014.