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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Where do you live? Do your firefighters just sit around taking no calls all day? Where I live (top 5 city in the US, with some of the most restrictive fire building codes) the average firehouse gets 80+ calls a day.

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I doubt even 1/4 of those are actual fires, in my town firefighters show up to car crashes and heart attacks and shootings and all sorts of things that aren't on fire.

What percent of those calls are actually necessary calls though? I used to watch a fire truck roll up at least once a week to check up on the same dude napping on the sidewalk. Not to try and say that the majority of their calls are like that, but that does suggest a system with at least some spare capacity.

What percent of hospital stays are "actually necessary"? Who do you want to decide that?

>Who do you want to decide that?

The hospitals, I guess? I'm making inferences from the judgement-making of...whoever, not second-guessing them.

If anything, I'm giving complete faith to the system here. My assumption is if they can send out a full fire-truck to respond to a call where clearly an ambulance would be sufficient, they're not doing it despite there also being a fire that needs response.

If one firehouse gets 80+ calls a day, 3000 calls per year nationwide is nothing.

Yes, but it's rare for one to be for a serious fire. Most firefighter calls these days are for medical issues.

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