The Dryden Fire Department says it was very busy in 2025.
Fire chief Chris Wood gave his annual report to city council this week.
He says one of the things they really concentrated on was doing more fire inspections.
“We did 96 total inspections in 2025,” Wood told city council at its open meeting Monday night.
“That’s the highest recorded inspections we have on record for Dryden Fire, so that’s an outstanding achievement.”
Wood points out those inspections did lead to a number of fire code violations.
“80 percent of those inspections resulted in 602 violations under the Ontario Fire Code, so that’s not the best story unfortunately, but because our inspections have not been strong in the past, now that we’re really getting through them, we’re really opening things up and we’re finding a lot of violations.”
Wood adds the Dryden Fire Department has been very successful in getting grants for a number of pieces of equipment and projects.
That includes $25,000 from Hydro One under its Energizing Life Community Fund to purchase a portable Fire Extinguisher Prop used to train firefighters, businesses, and citizens.
It also received the Ontario Fire Protection Grant of $33,000 for a Respirator Fit Testing Machine used to fit test the SCBA masks and a PPE drying rack for decontaminating structural bunker gear and PPE.