(FARGO, ND) – As the City of Fargo continues to grow, trends are aiming downward relating to the Fargo Fire Department.
At Monday night’s Fargo City Commission meeting, outgoing fire chief Steve Dirksen told the commissioners that numbers are down overall and trending in the right direction in many of the areas of the department. He also highlighted some of the recent news of the department, including a recent accreditation visit and the announcement that the department remains an ISO-1 organization, which will lead to lower insurance rates in the city.
Dirksen, who will retire at the end of this week, said the department responded to 14,222 incidents in 2024, a decrease of nearly 300 from 2023 and lower than a high of 14,546 in 2022. Those incidents resulted in $3,976,386 lost in 2024, down from more than $5 million in 2020.
The department’s goal response time for all emergency medical services calls is six minutes, with the department averaging a response time of just under nine minutes last year. The department’s first unit responding to fires arrived in seven minutes and 35 seconds, more than a minute over the department’s goal of six minutes and 20 seconds. The department’s effective response force, which consists of 17 members, arrives in 13 minutes, which is nearly three minutes over the goal.
“It’s a dependence of who’s busy and where the truck is coming from,” Dirksen said regarding the call times.
The department also responded to 151 hazmat calls, 85 technical rescues and 15 water rescues in 2024. Of note, Dirksen said, was a number of incidents involving vehicles colliding into buildings.
