The Wheeling Fire Department responds to a fire in Elm Grove in December. The department on Friday released its annual report. (File Photo)

WHEELING — According to data released Friday, the Wheeling Fire Department saw a 3% increase in incidents across the board in 2024, but that climb is considered to be “nothing out of the ordinary.”

Fire Chief Jim Blazier said the slight increase from 7,512 incidents in 2023 to 7,768 incidents in 2024 is on par with data from recent years.

The back-to-back flooding of the Ohio River last April may have been a contributing factor to there being slightly more rescue and EMS-related calls, he said, but there was an uptick across all response categories.

“I think there was a slight increase in a lot of the things that we do rather than just one isolated event or one isolated type of event,” Blazier said. “It wasn’t like it was just EMS calls that were elevated, it was a little bit of an elevation throughout.”

However this data is pretty standard in terms of yearly fluctuations, Blazier said.

The amount of fires that WFD responds to annually has remained around 100 in recent years, with 95 reported in 2024. The majority of these fires, from car fires to indoor and outdoor fires, are accidental.

Fires in general have been on a downward trend since the 1980s due to newer, safer construction and increased preventative measures, Blazier said.

Medical calls remained the largest number of calls last year, which is a consistent trend nationally, Blazier said. The WFD received 5,086 medical, EMS and rescue-related calls in 2024, 85 more than the year prior. These incidents accounted for 65% of all calls.

The total number of incidents also included 811 “false alarm” calls and 546 “good intent calls,” in which a safety threat was not actually present upon arrival to the scene. Another 1,045 were “service calls,” and unrelated to emergency response.

The fire department is now looking ahead to several exciting updates to their facilities and equipment in 2025. The new headquarters currently being constructed in East Wheeling is expected to be complete in late spring or early summer, Blazier said.

“We are making leaps and bounds of progress there,” he said. “We’re getting to the point now where they’re starting some of the more tedious work there to get some things finished up.”

Blazier commended the fire department for their hard work despite being in limbo. The ongoing construction presented challenges for firefighters who had to make changes to their living situations and schedules while completing runs.

“Our crews work hard, they’re very busy and we’ve had, by no fault of anyone, some unfortunate situations here with not having a headquarters building and having to double up crews in some of the stations,” Blazier said. “We’re gonna be patient and get the building finished and get in there.”

The department is also working on a new rescue truck that will be introduced in 2025. Blazier said crews have put a lot of time into laying out the compartments of the truck, which will be professionally outfitted and organized by discipline, such as car extrication or road rescue.

“They’re going to be able to utilize every square inch of that truck to make it a functional piece so it’s going to be a very very well thought out and functional unit once we get it on the road,” Blazier said.