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Lake Elsinore Fire Chief reports lower wildland incidents, steady response times in Q4 2024
Summary
At its Jan. 28 meeting, Battalion Chief Cody Wright told the City Council the fire department saw fewer wildland fires in the October–December quarter, maintained a 4.6-minute average response time and continued work on a multi-year fuel-reduction project around the lake.
Battalion Chief Cody Wright briefed the Lake Elsinore City Council on fourth-quarter 2024 emergency-response statistics on Jan. 28, reporting modest declines in some fire categories, continued mutual-aid deployments and ongoing fuel-reduction work around the lake.
Wright said the department recorded two structure fires, 178 calls for traffic collisions and 15 vegetation fires in the quarter. He told the council the department’s average response time improved slightly to 4.6 minutes from 4.7 minutes the prior quarter.
The department also reported a drop from the prior quarter of four residential fires and 30 fewer wildland fires, although traffic-collision calls increased by about 30, Wright said. He highlighted ongoing prevention work: the Lake Elsinore fuel break, which he described as running from Wildomar to the south part of Corona, reduces fuels by roughly 30 to 60 percent starting about 300 feet from the toe of slope.
Wright described large mutual-aid deployments earlier in the season. He said the city sent three strike teams in the middle of the night to assist fires in the Los Angeles area and the next day sent two additional strike teams; he added that, because of cooperative agreements and use of reserve equipment, the department maintained local coverage during those deployments.
Council members thanked Wright and asked no substantive follow-up questions. Councilwoman Johnson said she had no questions; Councilman Sheridan offered thanks for the department’s work.
The report also noted fire-marshal activity: plan reviews and inspections were being completed with target turnaround times, and the department ran mutual-assistance operations with neighboring jurisdictions.
