1995 proved to be a productive year for the Fire Department. Fire Calls totaled 38 with an average number of calls in each category. With the summer and fall bringing us a severe fire danger, we were very pleased to see that everyone was being very careful with outside fires of any type and we would like to express our thanks to all, for your cooperation and understanding.
The calls that we responded to totaled as follows:
Structure Fires: 7 Car Fires: 2
Mutual Aid Calls: 5 Chimney Fires: 4
Fire Alarms: 7 Brush/Grass : 6
Smoke Investigations: 2 Car Accidents: 4
Rescue calls: 1
Average Response time to a call: 2 Mins. 30 Secs.
Total Man-hours on Fire Department business: 9,772 Hours
The severe fire danger also brought a significant change within the fire service itself. The seven Island Fire Departments tossed off the last bonds of "Individuality" and cemented themselves into a unified team to provide the Island with a powerful firefighting force. When a call was put out to any of the departments to respond to a fire, all seven of the Islands departments automatically were responding to provide manpower and equipment. Joint training and pre-planning sessions were put into high gear, communications and command issues were solved for good, and in the end, each town had access to fire protection that would rival many full time municipal departments. A demonstration of these capabilities was shown at the first Island Fire Department Open house here in Southwest Harbor. From Somesville's demonstration of Emergency Rescue techniques to Bar Harbors Ladder Truck to Tremont demonstrating how to move a large amount of water from a pond to the fireground, all who attended were able to see first hand how the Island's departments function as a team.
Within our own department, we focused on the training, equipment updates and administrative necessities to comply with the mandates and requirements identified during 1994, by the Insurance Underwriters. After dealing with the additions of equipment, adding training in Hazardous Materials, Water Supply, Forest Firefighting, Advanced Firefighting techniques, and reorganizing the structure of the department, we will be requesting another rating examination with the hopes of significantly improving the towns insurance rating.
All that was accomplished within the past year would not have been possible with out the selfless hard work by the members of the Fire Department. I want to thank Asst. Chiefs Bert Willey and Jack Martel, Hal Hall, Dave Kelley, Theresa Burr and all the other members who have given so much time to the department.

Respectfully Submitted,

Samuel T. Chisholm
Chief
Southwest Harbor Fire Department