FSFD works busy holiday weekend

While many area residents were able to take off from their jobs during the Fourth of July holiday to relax spending time with family and friends, the firefighters at the Fort Scott Fire Department were hard at work.

According to FSFD Chief Paul Ballou, the city's firefighters were extremely busy responding to a variety of calls during the holiday weekend.

"You name it. I think this weekend we had it," Ballou said. "It was a busier than normal holiday weekend."

From Friday to Monday morning, the firefighters responded to nearly 20 calls helping with everything from fires to Emergency Medical Services assists. Ballou said the FSFD responded to six fires during the weekend.

The first fire the department responded to was on Friday evening near 7 p.m. at 419 Holbrook. The firefighters worked diligently to extinguish a tree that had caught on fire. The reason for the fire is unknown at this time.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Friday, the firefighters were called on because a tractor trailer located at 209 E. 1st. was on fire. After extinguishing the flames, the firefighters determined the fire to possibly be firework-related.

At nearly 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, firefighters responded to a vehicle fire at 324 S. Clark. Before firefighters could extinguish the flames, the fire spread to an out building near the vehicle. According to Ballou, the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Just shortly before 6 p.m. on Sunday, firefighters responded to 717 Fairway to put out a small structure fire. Ballou said the fire was in a garage and is, at this time, believed to have been accidental in nature.

In addition, firefighters extinguished two other fires, responded to 11 rescue or EMS calls and two hazardous conditions standby calls.

According to Ballou, not only did the fire department have a busy weekend, but it has had a busy year thus far. The local department has responded to more 530 calls so far this year, Ballou said.

"Normally we would be running about 100 less than that," he said.