Fires run rampant
BY ALYSSA MEIER
Calls for fire response within McLean County doubled between March of 2020 and the same month this year, with local departments expressing concern about the summer ahead.
A total of 16 calls requesting emergency fire department response were placed in March, fully doubling the number of similar calls placed during the same month of 2020.
“It’s going to be a bad year,” Dave Kapanke of the Underwood Fire Department emphasized as he and other firefighters wrapped up dousing a blaze that started outside of Coleharbor last month.
There have been 21 calls for fire assistance so far this year, an alarming figure so early in the fire season. McLean County averages roughly 100 calls for fire response annually, with 108 total in 2020, 91 in 2019 and 118 in 2018.
The 16 calls in March was twice the number placed in 2020, and dramatically higher than the single call in that month of 2019 and the five placed in March of 2018.
