What are "Run Numbers", you might ask? Well, firefighters commonly refer to responses to incidents as "runs". Generally one "run" is tallied for each incident, or "call", that the fire department responds to. Runs include a wide variety of incidents such as house fires, automobile crashes, grass fires and hazardous material spills to calls like flooded basements, downed power lines, smoke alarms sounding and service calls. Since your department also provides emergency medical care and transport we record runs for our EMS calls as well such as chest pains, lacerations, trouble breathing and bicycle accidents. Run numbers are not tallied for inspection or prevention services, blood pressure checks and the like. In simple terms, a "run" is only recorded when we provide a service to you or the community to protect lives or property or to prevent or reduce loss or hazards.

    The following chart shows the total number of fire and EMS runs combined for the calendar years indicated. The department has seen an ever-increasing number of "runs" which is due mostly to the growing number of year-round Brewster residents. Other factors such as the growing elderly population in town and the overall increase in the Cape's summertime population contribute to these numbers as well. The department currently averages almost 8 calls per day but it is not unusual to record more than twice that number in a 24 hour period. In addition, many of these runs occur simultaneously which can be particularly challenging to manage. For example, someone's car is on fire and they need a fire engine while across town at the same time a man might be having chest pains and need an ambulance right away. The charts would reflect this as simply two runs but the previous example shows that two simultaneous runs can be more challenging than several runs spread out over a few hours. This is because manpower is divided during simultaneous incidents. It is not unusual for the fire department to respond to three or more incidents occurring simultaneously in Brewster. 

    While the peak tourist season is generally our busiest time this is not to say that the winter is slow. As the second chart shows, there is typically a significant increase in the numbers of fires from November to February. Although the winter population is nearly a third of what the peak summer population is in Brewster the number of fires in the winter sometimes exceeds those of July and August. Each season presents its own special challenges for your fire and rescue department.