{"id":253471,"date":"2026-04-17T00:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253471\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:21:12","slug":"richardson-fire-department-sees-calls-increase-structure-fires-decrease-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253471\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson Fire Department sees calls increase, structure fires decrease in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRichardson Fire Department saw an increase in calls for fire and emergency medical services in 2025, as well as a slight decrease in structure fires, Fire Chief Curtis Poovey reported to City Council on April 13<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The overview<\/p>\n

In his annual report, Poovey said 2025 was a \u201cbusy year,\u201d with the department seeing an increase in fire and EMS calls as well as unit responses. A little over 75% of the department\u2019s 16,060 calls were for EMS, he said.<\/p>\n

\"visualization\"\/<\/p>\n

Richardson saw 60 structure fires across the city, a slight decrease from last year, Poovey said.<\/p>\n

Poovey said 2025 was also \u201canother great year\u201d for saved property, estimating almost $257 million in saved property value compared to $4.8 million of property loss.<\/p>\n

The fire department also carried out 43 investigations and made nine arrests last year, Poovey said, including a \u201cserial arsonist\u201d who they found had been responsible for fires in six different cities.<\/p>\n

Diving in deeper<\/p>\n

Assistant Chief of Operations Gene Senter said the increase in calls could be partially attributed to Richardson\u2019s population growth, although the call volume is growing three times the rate of the population.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not the only city seeing this. This is one of the main dialogues that\u2019s happening in North Texas,\u201d Senter said. \u201cThat\u2019s common [to see] the fire department call volume tripling what the population growth is, so it\u2019s the nature of a city growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Chief of Administration Robert Younger said there is also a correlation between Richardson\u2019s aging population and the increased call volume, including calls for falls in the home, heart attacks and other medical assistance.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead<\/p>\n

Poovey gave an update on the city’s Fire Master Plan<\/a>, which includes a proposal in the 2026 bond election<\/a> for a station remodel, an apparatus storage building and design and future construction funds for a Fire Station 7.<\/p>\n

Poovey said the department is aiming for $409,000 to be set aside in the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27 budget for two personnel additions, which will allow each shift to have an EMS captain and fill an administrative project applications manager role.<\/p>\n

Poovey said the Richardson Fire Department also marked its hundredth anniversary on April 9, with a city celebration planned for June 27.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson Fire Department saw an increase in calls for fire and emergency medical services in 2025, as well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3804,53390,4519,16236,5615,160,162,161,16910],"class_list":{"0":"post-253471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-3804","9":"tag-annual-report","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-emergency-medical-services","12":"tag-ems","13":"tag-plano","14":"tag-plano-headlines","15":"tag-plano-news","16":"tag-richardson-fire-department"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}