It was just another week for emergency personnel

It was an average Thanksgiving holiday period for the city's police and fire departments.

Fort Scott Police Department Capt. Shaun West said call volume for the police department the week of Thanksgiving was "less than average or average," and officers responded to minimal incidents, possibly due to the warmer weather for the time period.

"It was a pretty normal call level," West said. "Nothing peaked or there was nothing unusual. The weather was fairly decent."

West said police officers responded to just one vehicle accident during the holiday period, and that incident was not related to the weather. He said vehicle incidents usually rise during the holidays when ice and snow are covering the roads.

"As compared to past years at this time, it was less than average or average for the holiday call volume," he said.

West said there were no reports of incidents on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving which is regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping season. Major retailers open early on that Friday -- and some the day before on Thanksgiving -- to offer promotional sales and hordes of shoppers head out to local stores seeking deals.

"Not this year," West said. "It's spiked over the years depending on sales volume and the behavior of people. For our area, it's a passing trend that spiked that will hopefully disappear as quickly as it appeared."

Fort Scott Fire Chief Paul Ballou said firefighters responded to mostly medical calls during the Thanksgiving holiday period. He said there were no reports of cooking fires related to the holiday.

"It was mostly EMS stuff," he said. "We had three medical runs on Thanksgiving. During the holiday time period itself we had a few medical runs and that was about it. There were no fire calls."

Ballou said call volume for the department was "average or a little bit low" for the holiday period. He said the department averages about 20-25 calls during a typical seven-day period. This year, the FSFD responded to 24 incidents between Nov. 24-30.

"It was not a totally quiet holiday, we had a few medical calls," he said. "It was average or a little bit low as far as call volume, for that time period. It was pretty much average this past week. We had no cooking fires or problems. With the exception of the medical calls, everybody had a good holiday. The last several Thanksgivings have been good, with not a lot of problems."

As far as staffing over the holiday period, West said the FSPD runs with its typical four crews -- two three-man and two four-man crews -- working 12-hour shifts. The shift changes take place at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day.

"We have a day-and-night crew on and a day-and-night crew off," he said. "We run about the same numbers through the holidays. The only thing the holidays has a factor on is administrative personnel, so that would be the chief, myself, the school resource officer and some detectives. Some who worked during the holiday are on a regular schedule as well."

"The manpower stays pretty consistent with that schedule," West said.

Ballou said staffing of firefighters for the holiday periods remains the same as with any other time of the year.

"We don't change staffing. We have four (firefighters) on duty all the time," he said. "Typically over the holidays we'll have people not working generally around the house with their pager on."

Ballou said firefighters will work 24-hour shifts which begin at 7 a.m. and end at 7 a.m. the following day. Those firefighters will then be off work for a couple of days but typically stay "on call" in case they are needed.

"They're on 24, off 48," he said. "We have three crews who work all night. We run 12 people, four on a shift. We also have reserve firefighters carrying pagers."

The Tribune attempted unsuccessfully to contact Bourbon County Sheriff Bill Martin for this story.