BY JIMMY LAWTON

North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – Ogdensburg firefighters responded to 45 fires in 2019, up by nine compared to the previous year.

Emergency medical service calls for the department were down to 1,030 last year. That’s 30 less than the 1,060 calls they answered in 2018.

Hazardous condition calls remained flat at 103, but service calls were up to 632 in 2019 compared to 572 in 2018.

Of the 45 calls to actual fires, 23 involved family homes. Four calls were for commercial buildings and five were for vehicles. The city also provided mutual aid nine times and responded to 12 fires outside the city.

Ogdensburg Fire Department reduced training hours in 2019. The department spent 5,288.5 hours in training last year compared to 5,863 in 2018.

The department also reduced hours spent on fire prevention calls from 150.1 in 2018 to 129.5 in 2019.

Inspections were down from 144 in 2018 to 118.8 in 2019.

The department saw a major increase in hours spent on overtime for hazardous materials calls from 10.5 in 2018 to 80.5 in 2019. This was likely due, at least in part, to the higher instances of meth lab busts seen by the Ogdensburg Police Department.

The total of overtime hours paid or banked to firefighters jumped drastically from 5,045.75 in 2018 to 6,561 in 2019.

The biggest contributors to the increase were related to sick leave, time cash-outs and worker’s compensation.

Ogdensburg City Council recently approved a labor contract with firefighters that will reduce the staff by four positions through attrition over the next six years.