Geary County rural firefighters responded to 116 fire calls in 2016 – that’s down eleven fires from the previous year.

Garry Berges, rural Fire Chief, said that the county was down in grass and vegetation fires. “In 2015 we had a couple major semi fires, we had the one involved with the fatality accident up around the 82 – 77 junction, and I think that was about a $200,000 loss with the truck and contents; anytime you get a big fire like that, that makes your numbers go up.”

The average fire response time was 9 minutes 24 seconds. The total loss amount in 2106 was calculated at $265,460 compared with $514,084 in 2015.