Fire and police quarterly reports: city records 1,329 calls in 2025; study finds proposed fire district would raise taxes
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Summary
The fire chief reported 1,329 calls in 2025 (about 1,100 medical, 229 fire) and warned of a severe wildland season; police presented a three‑year crime trend while noting a coding error and that an October dispatch policy now diverts some psychiatric calls away from police. Staff also reported a study on a proposed four‑city fire district showed Washington Terrace's share could raise resident taxes by roughly 42%, and council agreed not to proceed.
The fire chief told the council the department handled 1,329 calls in 2025 for Washington Terrace, of which about 1,100 were medical and 229 were fire-related calls. "For last year year, 2025, we ran 13 29 calls for Washington Terrace," he said, and described a cluster of kitchen fires in the fourth quarter and one dryer-related fire.
The chief warned the council to prepare for a significant wildland-fire season unless the area receives substantial snow: "wildland fire season is going to be a very bad year in the state," he said, and noted an upcoming meeting with regional fire partners to discuss WUI (wildland-urban interface) planning.
On policing trends, the lieutenant presented a three-year analysis (2023–2025) using ATAC/GeoShield data and said many major case types trended down. The lieutenant identified a data 'snafu' that likely undercounted child-abuse and certain offense categories and explained other decreases — notably in drug violations and suicide-threat cases — reflect both staffing levels and a dispatch policy change implemented in October 2025 that diverts some non-imminent psychiatric or juvenile-disturbance calls to behavioral-health resources rather than dispatching police. "Those calls will still come in through dispatch...it just never generates the response on our side and I don't believe it generates any case numbers," the lieutenant said, noting that dispatch retains the record.
Council then considered a separate staff study about forming a Southern Weber-area fire district with South Ogden, Riverdale and Roy. Tom summarized the analysis and recommended against creating the district at this time. "For Washington Terrace specifically, we would look at 42% on the on the top end of that scale," Tom said, describing that potential increase as a primary reason not to proceed. Council discussed automatic aid versus mutual aid, station locations and staffing and accepted staff direction not to move forward.
Staff and council also discussed staffing improvements for both agencies. The lieutenant said a recent pay study and hiring wave improved recruitment: laterals and academy graduates are augmenting ranks and several hires or field-training completions are imminent.
Next steps: staff will follow up with additional data cleaning for police reporting, provide dispatch-diversion trend data if requested, and return with any new regional discussions on fire mutual-aid or WUI planning.