CENTERBURG — A recurring question when residents and village council members discuss two proposed subdivisions in Centerburg is whether the Central Ohio Joint Fire District can handle increased development.
“The research question was how does a housing development impact us?” COJFD Chief Mark McCann told the village council on Monday.
The answer, he said, led him to a lot of places.
McCann asked several departments what they use as a predictor of how things impact their department. Departments include Dublin, Westerville, Delaware city, and Orange Township, the leading township for growth in Ohio for the past 10 years.
McCann also asked NAS-T (North Area Strike Team), a prevention group that meets monthly and includes more than 20 fire departments. He did not find much help.
“It seems like the fire service, we’re a little bit reactive. It’s something we could do better at, for sure,” he said.
COJFD looked at run volume to answer the question, focusing on residential.
“In the past eight years, we’ve had about a 28-percent increase in our total run volume,” Lt. Jacob Castle said.
Year-over-year increases range from 12.9 percent (2019) to -2.67 percent in 2022.
McCann said COJFD does not have too many runs to businesses. Typical business responses are for odors or fire alarms.
Of the 1,144 runs in 2025, 689 were for residential structures.
Residential runs include one- and two-family dwellings, multi-family units (apartment buildings and residences above storefronts), and other residential structures (mobile home or camper).
They do not include senior-living facilities or nursing homes.
To estimate the calls for residential, COJFD looked at the average number of runs per 100 households.
Household data came from census reports.
“We’re trying to really drill down into how would these houses affect our run volume,” Castle said.
Calls per 100 households
In 2018, COJFD responded to about 21 calls per 100 homes. In 2025, the number is just over 24.
“The eight-year average is about 23 runs per 100 homes and is what you add if you add 100 homes,” Castle said.
“There could be some variability in that. Multi-family structures like the apartments, we tend to get a few more calls at than single-family homes, but that’s a pretty good estimation from what we have found in the data.”
In March, David Sahr of Hondros Family of Companies said plans call for around 250 single-family homes in a new subdivision on Johnsville Road. He anticipates development to be approximately 50 new homes a year.
Whistlestop Properties is proposing a 92-home Schlabach subdivision on Croton Road.
Weighing the resources
Councilman Daniel Hardwick said the current sewer capacity for the village is 300 more homes.
“That would be almost 70 runs. Could fire department absorb 70 runs per year?” he asked McCann.
The chief said the answer involves drawdown, or available resources. Drawdown evaluates capacity and committed resources.
COJFD is at 20-percent drawdown.
McCann said that COJFD should have seven people on a shift. That means two medics and one truck can respond at the same time.
“We currently now have a minimum staffing of four. We have two medic runs in progress [at the same time] a little over 15 percent of the time each day,” he said.
If both medics are out simultaneously, there is no staffing to send out a fire truck.
“There has to be two people on the truck minimum. We understaffed the fire truck due to the last levy cycle. So a lot of times our fire truck only has two people,” McCann said.
“So could we handle [70 extra runs]? Like I said, our drawdown is about 20 percent, and we’re out of staffing. When we get to about 25-percent drawdown regularly, then I need more people. So we’re already close.”
McCann said he starts to worry when the run volume reaches 1,500.
“We’re at 1,200 run call volume. So when we hit 1,500, that’s about all one station can normally do. You have to look at adding a lot of resources,” he said.
At the end of the council meeting, McCann answered the question another way.
Looking at the 23 runs per 100 households average, he said that is basically two a month.
“If everybody calls at 3 o’clock, no, we can’t handle that. But if it spaces out, yes. So am I too worried? No,” he said.
“There are days we don’t have any runs. So if you call on that day … Normally we do three or four runs a day.”
