The Indianola Fire Department presented their annual report to the Indianola City Council Monday, detailing how the department has served the community over the past year. The department responded to 2,599 calls, a 5% increase from 2020, with rescue and EMS calls making up 84% of responses. Fire Chief Greg Chia tells KNIA News he has to commend his staff over the past several years, as they have committed to training and putting the time in to make sure they can best serve the community.

“They have taken it upon themselves to take the extra effort to complete the training hours. We’ve jumped from 800 hours a year in training to over 5,000 hours a year. Just in training. That’s in addition to commercial inspections, liquor license inspections, inspections with the school, public education programs and training, their days are full.”

Chief Chia also said the department had great response times to fires and a relatively low property value lost due to fires, which shows his crews are responding fast and putting out fires quickly and efficiently to save as much as possible.