WINNSBORO, S.C. — The Fairfield County Fire Service released call data from the month of October 2019, which shows a majority of calls were for emergency medical incidents, not for fire, or hazardous conditions.
A chart tweeted out by the fire department Thursday morning shows 10 of the 95 calls in October were for fires, while a majority, 57.89 percent, was for 'rescue and Emergency Medical Service".
Other calls listed on their October incident report include hazardous conditions, good intent calls and false alarms and false calls.
Officials report false alarm and false calls made up 15.79 percent of the total October calls.
The Fairfield County Fire Service also released a detailed breakdown, which shows the top two incident types as 'medical assist' and 'motor vehicle accident with injuries.'
Out of the 10 fires that crews responded to, two were building fires, one was a cooking fire, four were passenger vehicle fires, and three were outdoor brush or waste fires.
Fairfield Fire Chief Jason Pope says the call data from 20 years ago would have looked much different.
"Today, the majority of fire service calls are EMS," Chief Pope said in a tweet.
Like many rural areas, Fairfield County relies on volunteer firefighters to keep the community safe.
The county has four career firefighters, and more than 100 active volunteer firefighters, but in the 1970s there was a waiting list just to get the opportunity to serve.
If you would like more information on becoming a volunteer firefighter visit https://www.scvolunteerfire.org/.