Fire calls of 2025

WAUPACA – The annual report of the Waupaca Area Fire District was recently released. It was authored by Fire Chief Jake Waller and Captain Steve Fenske. The fire district covers the City of Waupaca and the Towns of Dayton, Farmington, Lind, Waupaca and the Towns of Lanark and Belmont in Portage County. Total coverage area is approximately 147 square miles.
Here are the highlights of the report:

The team
Waupaca-area firefighters incurred zero casualties last year. The district has a line-up of 32 firefighters. In 2025, three new firefighters joined the team: Joe Nelson, Triton Crain and Isaac Abhold.
Over the course of last year, their training totaled up to 1,543 total hours. They studied and practiced everything from wildland firefighting, thermal imaging, vehicle extraction and other subjects involving ladders, hoses, nozzles and firefighting apparatus.

The report also included a description of the current fleet of eleven vehicles and also mentioned a new drone that was purchased with a grant from TC Energy and fundraising donations. It was deployed twice last autumn.

The calls
In 2025, the firefighters responded to 361 calls. Their average response time was 11. 17 minutes. Of these calls, 45 were for fires, 91 were for rescue and emergency services, 61 were for hazardous conditions without a fire, 23 were service calls, 64 were good intent calls, 76 were false alarms and one was a severe-weather call.
A good intent call, like the name suggests, is a false alarm-type call but made with good intentions. An example would be a person seeing smoke billowing from a neighbor’s backyard and calls 911. The firefighters arrive to find a man barbecuing a pork butt on his smoker with hickory chips. Often these calls are cancelled while the firefighters are en route to the location. A false alarm call could be a monitoring system gone haywire or the work of a prankster with malicious intent.
The number of overall calls has increased steadily over the years from 294 in 2021, 277 in 2022, 278 in 2023 and 329 in 2024.

Of the types of fires they responded to, 13 were building fires, six were brush fires, five were passenger vehicle fires, four were forest fires, and the rest were a mix of cooking fires, dumpster fires, chimney fires and trash fires.
Of the emergency calls, 41 were to assist emergency medical services, 22 were motor vehicle accidents with injuries, 17 were motor vehicle accidents with no injuries and the rest were a mix of searching for missing people, ice rescue, extracting trapped people from crashed vehicles, and rescuing one person from a stalled elevator.
Of the calls for hazardous conditions, gas leaks were the leader with 24 calls. The next most common calls were for downed power lines (13) and carbon monoxide concerns (9). The other calls were composed of electrical shorts, flammable liquid spills and vehicle accident clean-ups.
Of their service calls, the main type of calls were for smoke and strange odor investigation.
Where did all these calls originate from?
• City of Waupaca: 154
• Town of Farmington: 86
• Town of Dayton: 44
• Town of Waupaca: 27
• Town of Lind: 26
• Town of Lanark: 3
• Mutual Aid: 21
Waupaca County is part of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, a program that helps neighboring firefighters come to aid of other firefighters. In 2025, Waupaca crews helped out the fire departments of Manawa, Weyauwega, New London, Scandinavia, Iola, Ogdensburg and Poy Sippi.
In non-emergency work, the inspection division conducted 799 fire inspections at commercial businesses in 2025.

In memory

The report noted the retirement of former chief Gerald Deuman who served for 30 years from 1995 – 2025. It also honored the memory of Doug Nielson and Jerry Johanknecht, two lifetime members of the fire department that passed away in 2025.
“Doug Nielson and Jerry Johanknecht devoted their lives to protecting others, often at personal sacrifice, without expectation of recognition. Their contributions helped build the Waupaca Area Fire District into the organization it is today. While their loss is deeply felt, their legacy remains woven into the fabric of our department,” wrote Waller/Fenske.